Stormcast Eternals 3.0 - There is no "a" in Vindictors

[readercolin]

9 hours ago, Talas said:

Is it just me or do people get more angry than usual when losing againts Stormcasts? I have a Bonereaper army too and in the height of the Petrifex OP ability, people were much more gracious when losing back then.

I don't think it is stormcast, I think it is "spam" armies that people hate losing to.

For example, I don't get a lot of salt when I bring out my mixed arms forces with longstrikes + fulminators + infantry + hero's.  It feels like there are a number of things going on that my opponent can react to, and they feel like they are in the game.

However, I tend to see a lot of salt to losing to spam armies.  50 sentinels.  60 pink horrors.  10 dragons.  4 megagargants.  A lot of spam armies tend to lean into a single warscroll that does one thing well, which means that spam armies tend to have more lopsided matches where they win harder against what they beat and lose harder against what counters them.  And when someone ends up playing against a spam army, it all comes down to "does this spam beat me?" because then it feels less like the game is decided in the game itself and more decided in army building, and the player doesn't feel like they are even in the game at any point.

Finally, people tend to feel saltier when they don't feel like they were ever in the game at all.  Did your dice betray you from turn 1 onwards?  Salt salt salt.  Did you end up playing against megagargants with an army that can't pass the DPS check?  Salt salt salt.  If you feel like you have a chance of winning the game, or the game feels close, it is an interesting game.  Being on the receiving end of a curb stomping that it doesn't feel like you have any play against isn't.

[papary]

5 hours ago, readercolin said:

I don't think it is stormcast, I think it is "spam" armies that people hate losing to.

For example, I don't get a lot of salt when I bring out my mixed arms forces with longstrikes + fulminators + infantry + hero's.  It feels like there are a number of things going on that my opponent can react to, and they feel like they are in the game.

However, I tend to see a lot of salt to losing to spam armies.  50 sentinels.  60 pink horrors.  10 dragons.  4 megagargants.  A lot of spam armies tend to lean into a single warscroll that does one thing well, which means that spam armies tend to have more lopsided matches where they win harder against what they beat and lose harder against what counters them.  And when someone ends up playing against a spam army, it all comes down to "does this spam beat me?" because then it feels less like the game is decided in the game itself and more decided in army building, and the player doesn't feel like they are even in the game at any point.

Finally, people tend to feel saltier when they don't feel like they were ever in the game at all.  Did your dice betray you from turn 1 onwards?  Salt salt salt.  Did you end up playing against megagargants with an army that can't pass the DPS check?  Salt salt salt.  If you feel like you have a chance of winning the game, or the game feels close, it is an interesting game.  Being on the receiving end of a curb stomping that it doesn't feel like you have any play against isn't.

i think this hits the nail on the head, and ultimately I guess its on GW to make the other units in the book more viable, at present the best stormcast list is just take loads of dragons/fulminators so obviously thats what people will do.

I've been building a small Hallowed Knights force up and feel that i'm probably hamstringing myself by not choosing to take either of those units, but I guess thats based on my taste and just wanting to take shed loads of Prosecutors like its 2016

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, papary said:

i think this hits the nail on the head, and ultimately I guess its on GW to make the other units in the book more viable, at present the best stormcast list is just take loads of dragons/fulminators so obviously thats what people will do.

That's one of the most dificult things to do in AoS. All competitive armies have a "core" of one or two units that are spammed and only a few points are diferent from one competitive list to another. There are only a few armies that don't follow the same pattern.

Btw, taking other suboptimal units to complete your roster can still push you to a 3-2 wins. That's really good for an army that don't spam their units.

[papary]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

That's one of the most dificult things to do in AoS. All competitive armies have a "core" of one or two units that are spammed and only a few points are diferent from one competitive list to another. There are only a few armies that don't follow the same pattern.

Btw, taking other suboptimal units to complete your roster can still push you to a 3-2 wins. That's really good for an army that don't spam their units.

 

having just looked at the list ive written, I *might* be spamming prosecutors 

 

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals - Stormhost: Tempest Lords - Mortal Realm: Ghur - Grand Strategy: Hold the Line - Triumphs: LEADERS

Celestant-Prime, Hammer of Sigmar (325)

Knight-Venator (175) - General

Knight-Vexillor with Banner of Apotheosis (160)

Lord-Arcanum on Celestial Dracoline (200)

UNITS

6 x Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins (230)

3 x Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins (115)

3 x Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins (115)

5 x Vindictors (130)

10 x Vanquishers (250)

3 x Evocators on Celestial Dracolines (280)

 

im sure it will be terrible and the evocators and arcanum could deffo be swapped ( not sure what for thobut it is going to look amazing on the table) not sure why i typed hallowed knights in an earlier comment, stupid brain.

[AdamR]

10 minutes ago, papary said:

 

having just looked at the list ive written, I *might* be spamming prosecutors 

 

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals - Stormhost: Tempest Lords - Mortal Realm: Ghur - Grand Strategy: Hold the Line - Triumphs: LEADERS

Celestant-Prime, Hammer of Sigmar (325)

Knight-Venator (175) - General

Knight-Vexillor with Banner of Apotheosis (160)

Lord-Arcanum on Celestial Dracoline (200)

UNITS

6 x Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins (230)

3 x Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins (115)

3 x Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins (115)

5 x Vindictors (130)

10 x Vanquishers (250)

3 x Evocators on Celestial Dracolines (280)

 

im sure it will be terrible and the evocators and arcanum could deffo be swapped ( not sure what for thobut it is going to look amazing on the table) not sure why i typed hallowed knights in an earlier comment, stupid brain.

In before "you should change it to 1 Knight Draconis and 10 Stormdrake Guard!" :p

I also love Prosecutors. 
I especially love them in 3rd now that I don't have to tangle their wings and weapons with 1" coherency .
What I don't love anymore are Javelin Prosecutors. They just got worse (apart from their ace save) - no trident on the prime, no +1 DMG over 9"...
For me in 3rd Hammers is where it's at! Hittier, rendier, and a reason to use the 3d6 charge!
The only downside for me is I'm having to pull off shields and replace with hammers now that 2 weapons actually does something worthwhile!

 

TLDR - get Prosecutors with hammers!

[frenk_castle]

4 hours ago, AdamR said:

In before "you should change it to 1 Knight Draconis and 10 Stormdrake Guard!" :p

I also love Prosecutors. 
I especially love them in 3rd now that I don't have to tangle their wings and weapons with 1" coherency .
What I don't love anymore are Javelin Prosecutors. They just got worse (apart from their ace save) - no trident on the prime, no +1 DMG over 9"...
For me in 3rd Hammers is where it's at! Hittier, rendier, and a reason to use the 3d6 charge!
The only downside for me is I'm having to pull off shields and replace with hammers now that 2 weapons actually does something worthwhile!

 

TLDR - get Prosecutors with hammers!

Javelins are the proper way to play Prosecutors.

[Freejack02]

Just now, frenk_castle said:

Javelins are the proper way to play Prosecutors.

After the warscrolls got updated... I agree with @AdamR that hammers are just superior in every way but shooting range. If they let the Prime get an extra attack with the Trident/Greatweapon it would be closer, but paired hammers just do it better in this edition (I think to everyone's surprise). 

The real question is - what do they really excel at? Finding squishy support heroes and taking them out is about the only real use I can see on paper. 

[papary]

59 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

After the warscrolls got updated... I agree with @AdamR that hammers are just superior in every way but shooting range. If they let the Prime get an extra attack with the Trident/Greatweapon it would be closer, but paired hammers just do it better in this edition (I think to everyone's surprise). 

The real question is - what do they really excel at? Finding squishy support heroes and taking them out is about the only real use I can see on paper. 

I think looking cool as ****** is what they really excel at 🤣

[Freejack02]

3 hours ago, papary said:

I think looking cool as ****** is what they really excel at 🤣

100% agree - they are the reason I started SCE back in 2015. It was between the coolness of Prosecutors vs Gore Gruntas... armored fly-boys brought home the gold!

[Squark]

7 hours ago, Freejack02 said:

After the warscrolls got updated... I agree with @AdamR that hammers are just superior in every way but shooting range. If they let the Prime get an extra attack with the Trident/Greatweapon it would be closer, but paired hammers just do it better in this edition (I think to everyone's surprise). 

The real question is - what do they really excel at? Finding squishy support heroes and taking them out is about the only real use I can see on paper. 

They're good at blocking Unleash Hell from more critical targets. The 3d6 charge means you can reasonably charge from Scions of the Storm, and flight allows you to hop over screens.

[feadair]

There are some indications that Stormdrake Guard spam lists are a problem for the game. In fact, there is an entire very lively thread devoted to this in the AoS Discussions subforum. If this proves to be true (in my view there are some indications of this, but more data are needed), how should it be handled?

a)      Should the points go up? If so, how much?

b)     Should the Warscroll be altered? If so, how?

c)      Should the conditional battleline status be removed to prevent the spamming of SDG?

I personally would prefer c, the removal of the conditional battleline status (but only if there indeed proves to be a problem). I cannot see individual units of 2 or 4 being a major issue. I would not want to see these beautiful models nerfed to gather dust in the back of the cabinet with Knight-Heraldor, Gavriel Sureheart and the other casualties of the new battletome. I would hate my unit cards becoming obsolete due to changes to warscrolls. And I can also appreciate that the status of SDG as battleline is questionable: they are very different from your normal battleline units like Liberators or Judicators, and the condition imposed – a Knight-Draconis general - is not a major detriment, given that he has nice synergies with SDG in any event. At the same time, I would feel bad for anyone who just bought and painted 11 big models. I get that if you did that you took a risk, but at the same time the GW heavily marketed the option of an ‘all-dragons army’.

Views?

[Freejack02]

54 minutes ago, feadair said:

a)      Should the points go up? If so, how much?

b)     Should the Warscroll be altered? If so, how?

c)      Should the conditional battleline status be removed to prevent the spamming of SDG?

I think B and C are warranted honestly, with a points reduction. They should NOT be conditional battleline (sorry to those that bought 10 of them), and the warscroll really is super bloated. Trim up some of their features, take away KD giving battleline, and drop them down to 275 or so. 

[Joseph Mackay]

1 hour ago, feadair said:

There are some indications that Stormdrake Guard spam lists are a problem for the game. In fact, there is an entire very lively thread devoted to this in the AoS Discussions subforum. If this proves to be true (in my view there are some indications of this, but more data are needed), how should it be handled?

a)      Should the points go up? If so, how much?

b)     Should the Warscroll be altered? If so, how?

c)      Should the conditional battleline status be removed to prevent the spamming of SDG?

I personally would prefer c, the removal of the conditional battleline status (but only if there indeed proves to be a problem). I cannot see individual units of 2 or 4 being a major issue. I would not want to see these beautiful models nerfed to gather dust in the back of the cabinet with Knight-Heraldor, Gavriel Sureheart and the other casualties of the new battletome. I would hate my unit cards becoming obsolete due to changes to warscrolls. And I can also appreciate that the status of SDG as battleline is questionable: they are very different from your normal battleline units like Liberators or Judicators, and the condition imposed – a Knight-Draconis general - is not a major detriment, given that he has nice synergies with SDG in any event. At the same time, I would feel bad for anyone who just bought and painted 11 big models. I get that if you did that you took a risk, but at the same time the GW heavily marketed the option of an ‘all-dragons army’.

Views?

I don’t really think they are a problem, but if it’ll kerb some of the hate I’d go with B on the condition they receive a points drop (I’m not sure they’re worth 340pts as it is, let alone getting nerfed).

as for what changes
-drop the hero phase move, it’s not really needed
-give the 4+ spell ignore to Krondys and Karazai, or remove it from the Stormdrakes - doesn’t make sense for them to have it if the bigger ones don’t
-remove the Knight Draconis ability to let them shoot in the hero phase
-drop Krondys and Karazai to 550pts each
i think they’re fine otherwise, in fact I actually think the dragons themselves are a bit weak

[Beliman]

I will go for B or C.

Just don't let people spam the same unit and they will be fine.

[AdamR]

Yeah, if you drop the conditional battleline the most you can fit in is 8 and that also necessitates losing the knight draconis and his hero phase shoot buff.

Would this be enough?

[AmonRa]

On their own like a unit of 2 the average player buys, dragon knights are not great for their points. They don't hit hard enough over something like fulminators and arn't tanky enough to be an anvil.

It's only because of the conditional batteline that they are a problem which is the easiest fix. 

[NauticalSoup]

The problem: they marketed them as a way to play an all-dragon army. The one thing GW won't do is remove conditional battleline. Besides selling less kits they don't want to deal with the negative PR from people buying them and using them as directed only to get jerked around.

That leaves warscroll rewrites and points adjustments. The two tend to go hand in hand, but in my view a warscroll rewrite is imperative and points ought to follow that. It's just a massive bloated mess with too much unnecessary junk shoved onto something that can serve as a basic troop. Legitimately could have split those abilities onto two or more units and it would've felt fine.

Also they probably shouldn't be monsters, too smol.

[Dogmantra]

I don't think making them not able to be battleline would really solve any sort of fundamental problem, it just kicks the problem down the road where the spammy list isn't 11 dragons, it's 8 dragons and 3 5-man liberator units.

Non-monsterifying them would give them a drawback where each unit is only worth 4 models on a point, whereas for the same price you could get 15 liberators worth almost four times as many models.

[readercolin]

What I would like to see happen with Stormdrake Guard:

Remove the hero phase move.  There is literally no reason for that to be on the warscroll, and it gives them unmatched mobility in the stormcast roster.  This ability alone is what makes them so hard to balance, because it gives them a role that cannot be matched by anything else in the stormcast roster, and makes it so they can't be easily balanced by points cost changes.

Adjust the breath weapon.  D3-d6 mortals is extremely swingy, and is what really leads to feel bad situations.  Yes, the average damage for a single dragon's breath weapon is 1.8 mortal wounds, meaning a squad of 4 has an average of 7.2 mortal wounds.  However, that isn't going to help when someone has a lucky day and spikes 20 mortals off their breath weapon, and then another 20 mortals from a hero phase shoot.  Instead, they should either have the fulminators breath weapon (d3 on a 4+), or if they want to keep it slightly better they can make it 3-4 = d3, 5-6=d3+1.  This takes the spikes off their damage and makes them less swingy.

Those 2 changes alone will drastically adjust the stormdrake guard, and put them in a position where their original 285 points is about right for the models.  It still allows someone to play the all-dragon list, it still keeps them fast, tanky, and able to perform their roles.  But it eliminates the easy turn 1 charges that they can get right now, and also eliminates the feel-bad situation of someone getting lucky and spiking hard with the shooting.  It also puts them into a catagory with the rest of the stormcast roster where they can be fairly easily adjusted with points costs, as nothing that they do is so far out from the rest of the roster to be in-comparable.

Personally, I'm a big fan of being able to run an all-dragon list.  I totally want to run one myself one of these days.  However, I think that they need to do the same thing as the rest of the roster and perform a role that is desireable as part of the army, but not as the whole army themselves, and an all-dragon list should be a fun meme-list (like the all steam tank list), not an actual top-tier competitive option.

[CommissarRotke]

They never should have been conditional battleline, but GW gotta sell kits I guess... very frustrating it is the easiest fix yet least likely to be done. Any warscroll changes need to be moved to different units. Let Vigilors move in hero phase. Let Dragon brothers have spell resist. Let dracoth crossbows shoot in hero phase. Etc.

[NauticalSoup]

1 hour ago, CommissarRotke said:

They never should have been conditional battleline, but GW gotta sell kits I guess... very frustrating it is the easiest fix yet least likely to be done. Any warscroll changes need to be moved to different units. Let Vigilors move in hero phase. Let Dragon brothers have spell resist. Let dracoth crossbows shoot in hero phase. Etc.

It's annoying that this unit got a bajillion warscroll abilities while most of the units in the book are just a barrel featureless wasteland. 

[The World Tree]

2 hours ago, readercolin said:

What I would like to see happen with Stormdrake Guard:

Remove the hero phase move.  There is literally no reason for that to be on the warscroll, and it gives them unmatched mobility in the stormcast roster.  This ability alone is what makes them so hard to balance, because it gives them a role that cannot be matched by anything else in the stormcast roster, and makes it so they can't be easily balanced by points cost changes.

Adjust the breath weapon.  D3-d6 mortals is extremely swingy, and is what really leads to feel bad situations.  Yes, the average damage for a single dragon's breath weapon is 1.8 mortal wounds, meaning a squad of 4 has an average of 7.2 mortal wounds.  However, that isn't going to help when someone has a lucky day and spikes 20 mortals off their breath weapon, and then another 20 mortals from a hero phase shoot.  Instead, they should either have the fulminators breath weapon (d3 on a 4+), or if they want to keep it slightly better they can make it 3-4 = d3, 5-6=d3+1.  This takes the spikes off their damage and makes them less swingy.

Those 2 changes alone will drastically adjust the stormdrake guard, and put them in a position where their original 285 points is about right for the models.  It still allows someone to play the all-dragon list, it still keeps them fast, tanky, and able to perform their roles.  But it eliminates the easy turn 1 charges that they can get right now, and also eliminates the feel-bad situation of someone getting lucky and spiking hard with the shooting.  It also puts them into a catagory with the rest of the stormcast roster where they can be fairly easily adjusted with points costs, as nothing that they do is so far out from the rest of the roster to be in-comparable.

Personally, I'm a big fan of being able to run an all-dragon list.  I totally want to run one myself one of these days.  However, I think that they need to do the same thing as the rest of the roster and perform a role that is desireable as part of the army, but not as the whole army themselves, and an all-dragon list should be a fun meme-list (like the all steam tank list), not an actual top-tier competitive option.

couldn't agree more.

[CommissarRotke]

58 minutes ago, NauticalSoup said:

It's annoying that this unit got a bajillion warscroll abilities while most of the units in the book are just a barrel featureless wasteland. 

What really gets me is like... you don't need to try hard to sell dragons. Hell, slap a rider on one and people go even more nuts. Having dragon-riding KNIGHTS? That's how you rope in people who don't even play the faction.

But nah, gotta overprice both kits then give comp players a reason to drop 600$ on the cav I guess.

[AverageBoss]

I would change them to being bought in 1s instead of 2s, so the biggest unit you could have is 3 (for two reinforcement points).

I would then also add a rule to their warscroll that limits the number of them you can take based on game size. 3 for a 2k game.

Would also make the Knight Draconis a 0-1 choice.

[lare2]

I don't really get why there's a wider discussion about dragons being a problem. I really don't think they are. Since their warscroll was released there's just been this weird mass hysteria over them. It's not like they've been dominating tournies for an extended period of time... or even recently. I'm yet to see a tourney being won by an all dragon list (apologies if I've missed any). If you want to take an all dragon list then great for you. The evidence shows you're not guaranteed a 5-0 though. I can see why there's debate amongst SCE players, however, as their warscroll does affect internal balance. 

 

Edited January 14, 2022 by lare2