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

[NauticalSoup]

No the battlescroll was buffs, that's not what I meant - just the lists haven't really changed much in quite a long time and the buffs and nerfs both haven't significantly affected list construction. The good units from when the book came out are still the good units etc.  

[CommissarRotke]

Ohh yeah, I agree that's disappointing. I was hoping Vigilors at least would see more play with the points drop. Maybe with the next campaign book.

[feadair]

10 hours ago, NauticalSoup said:

No the battlescroll was buffs, that's not what I meant - just the lists haven't really changed much in quite a long time and the buffs and nerfs both haven't significantly affected list construction. The good units from when the book came out are still the good units etc.  

I think it may still be too early to say anything about the effect of the October battlescroll. I am not sure we have enough data to judge, yet.

[feadair]

11 hours ago, NauticalSoup said:

Good to see SCE weren't nerfed out of oblivion but the book's internal balance is still clearly pretty bad when some pretty harsh nerfs to the premier choices don't really justify pivoting to any of the other 80 warscrolls we're sitting on

Entire chambers worth of units collecting dust on my shelf...

Yes. Pretty much the entire Sacrosanct Chamber has been expunged from tournament results. There may have been an Incantor or two, but no Evocators, Sequitors etc.

[Causalis]

Hello people. So today was the first day of a 2-day-tournament that I’m attending and I brought the list that I posted here earlier. 

 

Here’s how it performed:

 

First game was vs Lumineth with Stoneguard spam, big cow and support characters. Basically all of my opponent’s units ignored rend -1 and -2 and whilst my list has some mortal wound output it’s nowhere near enough. He could buff a Stoneguard unit so that it has +1 attack, -2 rend, 3 wounds per model and does MWs on 5+ IN ADDITION. This game ended in a resounding loss.

 

Game two was vs Sylvaneth with 2x3 Bow Kurnoth and 1x6 Scythe Kurnoth. This was way closer. I got some good hits in with the Annihilators and chunked the Scythes down to 2 models... only for my opponent to rally them and roll three 6s, bringing them back to 5 dudes. He whittled my forces down with Strike and fade and I couldn’t catch him since he could teleport 4 units a turn (Treelord, Revenants, one Kurnoth unit, Durthu) and all my units only have 4 or 5 inch move. My Protectors were unkillable though but he was just teleporting around them. Another loss.

 

Game three vs Tzeentch with Kairos, two mortal heroes, Krondspine, Acolytes and Screamers. He took first turn but didn’t have anything in range (only one spell through Spellportal). In my turn I killed the Magister that was bound to the Krondspine with shooting and the Krondspine ate one unit of Screamers. I also managed to find a spot to drop a unit of Annihilators. They charged Kairos, took him down to 1 wound, he killed one, my guy explodes and kills the big bird. By the end of round 2 I had killed all his heroes and by the end of round 4 I had tabled my opponent. My first win with Stormcast! 

 

What I’ve learned so far: 

-My list has waaaay to little board control. Sure, the objective my Protectors hold is mine forever but my Libis and Judicators just die instantly and then I’ve got hardly anything left

-All of my units are very, very slow. 

-My Lord Relictor rolled THREE 1s in the first game for Translocation, so making him General with High Priest now seems worthwhile.

 

Tomorrow I’ll have another two games. In the meantime I would like to ask what you would change about my list to make it better.

[Causalis]

Today was the second day and I got to play another two games. Here’s the rundown:

 

First game was vs Nighthaunt. He played Scarlet doom with 3x20 Bladegheists, Krulghast, 2x Spirit Torments, Guardian and a few Banshees. 

 

My Annihilators were surprisingly good in this match! Sure, he always got a 4+ armour save against them but every one he fails is 4 damage (bounty hunters) and all his models only have 1 wound each. So 3 Annihilators cleared a whole 20 Bladegheist blob in 2 rounds of combat. The Judicators were great too, forcing a lot of saves which Nighthaunt hate. In the end I lost this one very closely since he managed to get BOTH 9” charges with his bounty hunter Bladegheists when they deepstruk. Thus he could just blast my units with mortal wounds and once again I didn’t have enough units left to grab objectives. 

 

Last game vs DoK with Morathi, 15 bowsnakes and 2x Shadowstalkers. 

He took first turn, sniped my Relictor with his Bowsnakes (their range and teleport CA means you can’t screen your heroes). Morathi killed a few Protectors and managed to reach my Imperatant and kill him too. My turn I shot one squad of Shadowstalkers from the board and my Annihilators fail their 9” charge. I don’t get the double turn and we call it. Would have won if I had gotten the double. 

 

So what did I learn:

-This list has simply not enough board control and with no units to screen (apart from Liberators) it is hard to deny deepstrikes or teleports.

-At least on a competitive level, taking Galletian Vets is more of a handicap than a boon. I encountered hardly any other armies with lots of GV and those that did bring them had them as cheap screening units, so taking bounty hunters was wasted. 

 

My thoughts on the units:

 

Relictor: Over my 5 games he rolled SIX 1s for his Translocate. I now firmly believe that giving him High Priest is 100% mandatory. But having his teleport in a Scions army wasn’t really that important. To get more value he needs cheap, small units he can tp to grab objectives, since relying on a 9” charge isn’t a good idea.

 

Castellant: Solid buff option but maybe a bit redundant. Mystic Shield + AoD is enough most of the time and he doesn’t help against mortal wounds.

 

Imperatant: S+ dude! Having 10 free commands over 5 turns is worth his points alone and shocking a unit 7” is the cherry on top.

 

Liberators: Great unit. In expert conq. they are awesome for holding objectives. They are deceptively tanky and their damage is alright.

 

Judicators w/ Crossbows: Holy moly, I need more of these! Another excellent choice for EC and great damage. 10/10 would play again.

 

Fulminators: Take four (either as 4 or 2x2) or none at all. They are too slow to reliably get to the targets they want to charge and only 2 guys are so fragile that they’ll just die if they get caught. If they charge they do great damage but they hardly got any charges of in my games. Versus LRL they just tanked them since they ignored the rend -2, vs Sylvaneth they were too slow to catch the teleporting units and he can just teleport to them, charge, kill em and then strike and fade. Vs Tzeentch they were good but overkill. Vs. Nighthaunt they were also good but died immediately after their charge. And vs. DoK they just die to Bowsnakes.

 

Annihilators: Bit of a mixed bag. They are just too expensive I feel for essentially a one-use missile. They drop down somewhere and kill or cripple their target and will promptly die afterwards. A unit that is only usable one time is just too much to ask for 240p. 

 

Protectors: As bad as it sounds, I think these are great but had only bad matchups. LRL ignored their rend, Sylvaneth could always stay out of range, Tzeentch didn’t really do anything to them but could’ve just fired mindbullets at them, Nighthaunt simply killed them with MWs on the charge and with stacking debuffs and DoK just threw Morathi at them which they can’t kill or outrun. I’ll have to try them again and must hope to get some more decent matchups. Or I’ll have to invest in the Battlemage + Relictor combo to get a somewhat reliable charge after teleporting.

 

Do you share my experience?

[CommissarRotke]

On 11/19/2022 at 3:54 PM, Causalis said:

They charged Kairos, took him down to 1 wound, he killed one, my guy explodes and kills the big bird.

Can't really speak to the mathing part but THIS IS AWESOME!!!

[Holy_Diver]

Outsider's question: has anyone ever dealt with Karazai/Krondys together with preators build?

[Lord Krungharr]

On 11/25/2022 at 10:16 AM, Holy_Diver said:

Outsider's question: has anyone ever dealt with Karazai/Krondys together with preators build?

I fought against Karazai with my Fyreslayers once.  Karazai charged in and killed 10 Vulkite Bezerkers w ease, but then I answered in my turn by charging with a Runefather and HGBs w Broadaxes, and they killed him.  The one-two punch from the hero w retinue immediately striking afterwards is potent...and we'll be seeing a bunch more of that in the upcoming 'season'. 

Here's my new Stormcast list (no tome yet, and still need Dracoths) because conversions are more fun when they're bigger and less of them:

Hammers of Sigmar

Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger

Knight-Draconis (general)

pair of Stormdrakes (battleline #1)

4 Fulminators ( battleline #2) (I have 2 giant werewolf looking ones so far)

4 Tempestors (battleline #3)

allied Treelord (for stompy strike-last and no pile-in effects)

Probably not super good but I think it would do alright in some matchups.  And I could switch out old Oaky for a Lord Imperitant or something when I find some more heroes cheap.

[Malakithe]

Anyone making new lists with the points changes?

[CommissarRotke]

Glad to see they finally agreed that hero points were way too high in the book... I'll probably mess around with trying to get to 2k this weekend. Sequitors and Liberators matching points now makes a lot of sense to me.

I was going to paste the changes directly here but with the addition of base sizes to the spreadsheet it wasn't working out:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Ugb15RoC5uAQIMWi.pdf

[Dogmantra]

Now that the battlescroll's out, and Evos on Dracs went down 40 points, mounted LAs went down, Sequitors are now sensibly priced the same as Liberators, and even ol' reliable the Knight Incantor got a cheeky points drop... Season of the Sacrosanct baby!!

[NauticalSoup]

Ballistas are probably still too high and I'm surprised dracolines went down that much compared to foot evos but overall, glad to see it.

Sequitors interest me the most. They are now more reasonably priced as a side-step from a liberator (which is what they are in essence, not the straight line upgrade their old points suggested). And I have a lot of them!

[Marcvs]

Castigators at 90 points are also a nice disposable unit that can do Descrate their Lands or grab an exposed objective in t1 and then either die or be a small nuisance.

Overall feeling is that "competitive" units remain more or less the same, but the "slightly less optimised" builds have really multiplied with the Sacrosant reductions.

[CommissarRotke]

2 hours ago, Marcvs said:

Castigators at 90 points are also a nice disposable unit that can do Descrate their Lands or grab an exposed objective in t1 and then either die or be a small nuisance.

Overall feeling is that "competitive" units remain more or less the same, but the "slightly less optimised" builds have really multiplied with the Sacrosant reductions.

100% this, Castigators being a solid (if niche) way to help spend your last ~200 points is such a good move.

I may not be a complete fan of the Soul Wars versions but by Sigmar the way their crossbows work is such a fun idea

Edited January 12, 2023 by CommissarRotke

[Marcvs]

29 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

100% this, Castigators being a solid (if niche) way to help spend your last ~200 points is such a good move.

I may not be a complete fan of the Soul Wars versions but by Sigmar the way their crossbows work is such a fun idea

Yeah, I am very happy to bring them to the table for the first time since I acquired them... in 2019. This is a list I will use in a relaxed league at my club -read: we aim at building lists which are not optimised, and the more experience you have with AoS the more you have to dig out units which you never use:

PS: yes, we use a weird points limit

 

 

[CommissarRotke]

Ooh hunters and a Zephyros too?? this looks like a fun list

[Lord Krungharr]

I'm gathering bits to make my converted dwarfy and animalistic Stormcast built. 

Wondering if I should be looking to make a couple Stormstrike Chariots?  I like the looks of that warscroll actually, a nice fast and durable shock unit.  And given how crappy the Mindstealer Sphiranx is in StD now, I'm thinking a couple giant cat-pulled chariots would fit right into my army; and they're not really that Chaosy looking.  Anyone use those at all?  I'd probably go with axe and spear, as the bow doesn't seem great at all.  Don't have the tome yet....would chariots benefit from any certain Stormhost perhaps, or any certain hero to maybe get their charge rolls augmented for more MW action?

I've got a Lord-Arcanum on Gryphcharger, Knight Draconis, pair of Stormdrakes, 4 Dracoths probably to be Tempestors, and another 4 Dracoths (the heaviest conversions) to be Fulminators or Concussors since they'll be big werewolf looking guys.  Dracoths are battleline in the Hammers of Sigmar, but I'd get some alternate battleliners if the Chariots get buffed somehow with alternate Stormhost(s).

[Malakithe]

Im personally a fan of the EvoKitties over the other cav units. Not sure what stormhost they would benefit from though.

[Dogmantra]

The chariot is incredibly good for its points imo. 12 wounds with a 3+ save is pretty hard to shift. They're probably best in Hammers of Sigmar for two reasons. Firstly, the 6++ ward gives them a couple more effective wounds and is I think the most generically useful stormhost. Secondly, and it's very minor, the biggest downside of the chariot is that they are not elite so they can't issue commands to themselves. It makes rerolling charges a bit trickier, and landing a charge is super important if you want to get the value from the chariot. If you bring Bastian Carthalos in Hammers, he can issue a command to anything on the board once a turn. Not worth bringing for that combo alone, but it's nice for a little extra reassurance that if the chariot fails its charge I can use a command to reroll.

For charge augmentation, the only native SCE thing I can think of that works on chariots is just the Knight Vexillor's aura of reroll charges, which works wholly within 12" so is probably not worth it. Cities of Sigmar Battlemage with the Ghur spell is the best charge booster available, giving a +2 to charge rolls, but that only makes it more likely you'll succeed, it doesn't increase damage.

[Lord Krungharr]

Yeah I was thinking that's 60 points less than a Treelord, but the chariot is faster, plus the MW is handy and they give a hit debuff if they have charged I think.  Nice to know Hammers gives them a ward save!  Didn't realize that part.   

What about the Stormkeep mode of Stormcast?  Is that something low model count armies might like?  Or does the deepstriking outweigh the objective dominating?  The Dracoths and Dragons are fast, so I'm not sure the deepstriking helps all that much actually.   

[Malakithe]

49 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

Yeah I was thinking that's 60 points less than a Treelord, but the chariot is faster, plus the MW is handy and they give a hit debuff if they have charged I think.  Nice to know Hammers gives them a ward save!  Didn't realize that part.   

What about the Stormkeep mode of Stormcast?  Is that something low model count armies might like?  Or does the deepstriking outweigh the objective dominating?  The Dracoths and Dragons are fast, so I'm not sure the deepstriking helps all that much actually.   

If your run Annihilators you probably want to be deepstriking

[Malakithe]

What is a good beat stick hero for stormcast in general that isnt a named character? I was thinking the Knight-Draconis but 300pts seems a bit much

[Lord Krungharr]

18 hours ago, Malakithe said:

What is a good beat stick hero for stormcast in general that isnt a named character? I was thinking the Knight-Draconis but 300pts seems a bit much

Nice thing about the Knight-Draconis though is he's got 5 attacks/3+/2+/rend-3/2 dmg.  The rend-3 is super saucy and against many enemies makes them effectively MW by ignoring 4+ armor.  Combined with the death breath, stomp from being a monster, and dragon claws, that can take on most average enemy monsters handily.  Probably extra good with some of the new GHB stuff maybe?  Haven't delved into those yet (don't have the new GHB yet), but I think there's something called the Tusk Helm that makes heroes charge w MW like a Stormstrike Chariot.

I like to use him in Living City with Spear of the Hunt for Strike First and rend-4 but that's a different tome of course.

[Dogmantra]

I've seen the Knight Draconis used with the Luckstone for a sort of "budget" celestant prime - drop him down, guarantee the 9" charge. I love the idea of using the luckstone like this but the Draconis is the only one it really seems worth it on, since all the other big hitters are named characters.