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


PJetski

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4 hours ago, Nizrah said:

Bastian
Relictor 
3x 10 Vindicators 
6 Vanguard Raptors
2 Drakeguard 
1990

 

Isn't this 4 reinforcements when we're only allowed 3? (I'm away from my sources so might be wrong on that). 

 

Edit: I think I'm misremembering and we're allowed 4 - Disregard!

Edited by Freejack02
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So honestly should I just unload my Evocators on Dracolines? I get that they still have good output, but for the points they are an order of magnitude weaker than Stormdrake guard. Is anyone brewing with Evos on Dracs? Seems like all the interest is on Dracothian Guard and Drakes. 

I do like that the Lord Arcanum on Drac gets the best mount trait form our last book baked in, but is that even enough?

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38 minutes ago, Xeperi said:

You have too many reinforced units, I think. You can only reinforce 4 times in 2k points and you seem to have done 5.

You are right of course. So then i could exchange 5 Liberators for a Knight Azyros/Knight Incantor/Gryphhounds? I think the Incantor for some (anti)magic sounds best.

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17 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

oh Judis got 16" on their crossbows?? I might need another 10 fml

They actually got 18" on them now.

 

32 minutes ago, boombyeyeah said:

I think they get outclassed by xbowjudicators with their new 16'' range (or was it even 18?). More Models, Wound and Damage. 

It looks like 10 Judis with Crossbows + the Prime with a Thunderbolt math out to about the same damage as 6 Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows, vs a 4+ save. So yeah, you're probably right. Consider 10 Judicators are 80 points cheaper and count as battleline. That's some ****** internal balance right there.

*edit Oh nevermind, The Judicators can take a second Thunderbolt X-Bow with 10 models. their damage is just BETTER vs a 4+ save or better....

Edited by Sleepa
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14 minutes ago, Sleepa said:

They actually got 18" on them now.

 

It looks like 10 Judis with Crossbows + the Prime with a Thunderbolt math out to about the same damage as 6 Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows, vs a 4+ save. So yeah, you're probably right. Consider 10 Judicators are 80 points cheaper and count as battleline. That's some ****** internal balance right there.

*edit Oh nevermind, The Judicators can take a second Thunderbolt X-Bow with 10 models. their damage is just BETTER vs a 4+ save or better....

Vanguard-Raptor hurricane crossbows have been 18" and stayed that, you mean Judicator boltstorm* crossbows got bumped up to 18" as well?

Edited by CommissarRotke
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Re: Stormdrake Guard

They're very good but I don't think they replace every unit in your army. They have a lot of great things going for them (9 wounds, MONSTER, 4+ spell ignore) but they don't deal spectacular melee damage. You really want to charge with Drakes, so if you get hit first you lose a lot of damage.

With a lance and on the charge, Drakes still do less damage than Concussors do all the time. Fulminators on the charge seem to be our strongest hammer unit so far. Annihilators with Grandhammers are a huge impact and require little external support. There is huge variance in the breath attack - it can do up to 6 mortal wounds, but on average each model does less than 2 per volley. You need to bring a Draconis to smooth out the variance (and sometimes just to melt something with a ton of lucky mortals) and these points really start to add up.

They are a 3+ MONSTER which is all the rage right now, but remember that they're not HERO units so you can't Heroic Recovery or Their Finest Hour with them. You need to invest in Mystic Shield and other such save bonuses, and if you bring more than one unit your opponent can focus fire down the ones you don't buff with save boosts.

You need to put a lot of opportunity costs into making them worthwhile and I think that kind of deathstar playstyle has a lot of obvious weaknesses.

They're great models. If you just want to spam dragons because dragons are cool, you're probably going to go minimum 3-2 because their stats are huge for their cost and many opponents still lose to alpha strikes even after 6 years of AOS.

I think Draconis and 1x4 Drakes is going to be an excellent core to a competitive list, but going past that will probably be putting too many eggs in one basket. You still need bodies for objectives, shooting to tear down screens, and the right support.

Edited by PJetski
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26 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Re: Stormdrake Guard

They're very good but I don't think they replace every unit in your army. They have a lot of great things going for them (9 wounds, MONSTER, 4+ spell ignore) but they don't deal spectacular melee damage. You really want to charge with Drakes, so if you get hit first you lose a lot of damage.

With a lance and on the charge, Drakes still do less damage than Concussors do all the time. Fulminators on the charge seem to be our strongest hammer unit so far. Annihilators with Grandhammers are a huge impact and require little external support. There is huge variance in the breath attack - it can do up to 6 mortal wounds, but on average each model does less than 2 per volley. You need to bring a Draconis to smooth out the variance (and sometimes just to melt something with a ton of lucky mortals) and these points really start to add up.

They are a 3+ MONSTER which is all the rage right now, but remember that they're not HERO units so you can't Heroic Recovery or Their Finest Hour with them. You need to invest in Mystic Shield and other such save bonuses, and if you bring more than one unit your opponent can focus fire down the ones you don't buff with save boosts.

You need to put a lot of opportunity costs into making them worthwhile and I think that kind of deathstar playstyle has a lot of obvious weaknesses.

They're great models. If you just want to spam dragons because dragons are cool, you're probably going to go minimum 3-2 because their stats are huge for their cost and many opponents still lose to alpha strikes even after 6 years of AOS.

I think Draconis and 1x4 Drakes is going to be an excellent core to a competitive list, but going past that will probably be putting too many eggs in one basket. You still need bodies for objectives, shooting to tear down screens, and the right support.

But I also predict that list with only Dragons will do a lot of 5-0... 

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32 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Re: Stormdrake Guard

They're very good but I don't think they replace every unit in your army. They have a lot of great things going for them (9 wounds, MONSTER, 4+ spell ignore) but they don't deal spectacular melee damage. You really want to charge with Drakes, so if you get hit first you lose a lot of damage.

With a lance and on the charge, Drakes still do less damage than Concussors do all the time. Fulminators on the charge seem to be our strongest hammer unit so far. Annihilators with Grandhammers are a huge impact and require little external support. There is huge variance in the breath attack - it can do up to 6 mortal wounds, but on average each model does less than 2 per volley. You need to bring a Draconis to smooth out the variance (and sometimes just to melt something with a ton of lucky mortals) and these points really start to add up.

They are a 3+ MONSTER which is all the rage right now, but remember that they're not HERO units so you can't Heroic Recovery or Their Finest Hour with them. You need to invest in Mystic Shield and other such save bonuses, and if you bring more than one unit your opponent can focus fire down the ones you don't buff with save boosts.

You need to put a lot of opportunity costs into making them worthwhile and I think that kind of deathstar playstyle has a lot of obvious weaknesses.

They're great models. If you just want to spam dragons because dragons are cool, you're probably going to go minimum 3-2 because their stats are huge for their cost and many opponents still lose to alpha strikes even after 6 years of AOS.

I think Draconis and 1x4 Drakes is going to be an excellent core to a competitive list, but going past that will probably be putting too many eggs in one basket. You still need bodies for objectives, shooting to tear down screens, and the right support.

thanks, i completely agree with this!

Drakes are crazy good but we need more than that to play something fully rounded.
When we see that they can be battleline the initial thought of everyone is to put a maximum of these on the army but i don't think it should be like this.
One of the battleline could be drakes, the second one dracothian guards, and the 3rd+ some vindictors sprayed all arround to hit objectives here and there.

Anyway this conversation is pretty exciting, i love the amount of opportunity we get from this battletome :)

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1 hour ago, Sleepa said:

They actually got 18" on them now.

 

It looks like 10 Judis with Crossbows + the Prime with a Thunderbolt math out to about the same damage as 6 Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows, vs a 4+ save. So yeah, you're probably right. Consider 10 Judicators are 80 points cheaper and count as battleline. That's some ****** internal balance right there.

*edit Oh nevermind, The Judicators can take a second Thunderbolt X-Bow with 10 models. their damage is just BETTER vs a 4+ save or better....

wow they really did bump the crossbows up to 18" damn image.png.7f599e4db91be1889b70c172a2db61b1.png

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52 minutes ago, PJetski said:

With a lance and on the charge, Drakes still do less damage than Concussors do all the time.

The lance is only 1 rend better on the charge, the swords will most likely be the better all around options. With the swords vs concussors, the drakes only do 0,2 dmg less on average against a 4+ save. So in that regard concussors are slightly more damage per point however lets see what else we get:

For 65 points over concussors we get:

+2 move and fly

+6 total wounds

Move + charge in hero phase (can be used to avoid unleash hell/reposition)

4+ spell ignore

instant kill model ability (into the tempest)

Monstrous rampages

-1 to be wounded command trait synergy

Far superior breath attack 

 

That is just nuts and just no contest for the points. I love all my painted up dracothian guards but there is no sensible reason to use them except for fun. The -1 to be wounded command trait for monsters really push the spam here for monsters, it ups the survivability a lot.

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47 minutes ago, PJetski said:

You really want to charge with Drakes, so if you get hit first you lose a lot of damage.

Nah, just use the blades.

48 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Fulminators on the charge seem to be our strongest hammer unit so far. Annihilators with Grandhammers are a huge impact and require little external support. 

Drakes will guaranteed shoot and smash into whatever you want them to. Fulminators need a translocation. And their damage drops to half after charge. Annihilators do require support - lord imperatant. Otherwise you're banking on a 9" rerollable, which is only about 50%. Both of these are also no where near as tanky as SDG. And they dont take objectives.

51 minutes ago, PJetski said:

You need to bring a Draconis to smooth out the variance (and sometimes just to melt something with a ton of lucky mortals) and these points really start to add up.

Draconis is an amazing unit in itself for 255. He's not a useless one trick support like a lord-relictor or imperatant.

53 minutes ago, PJetski said:

They are a 3+ MONSTER which is all the rage right now, but remember that they're not HERO units so you can't Heroic Recovery or Their Finest Hour with them. You need to invest in Mystic Shield and other such save bonuses, and if you bring more than one unit your opponent can focus fire down the ones you don't buff with save boosts.

Uhm, this can be said for everything else you mentioned. SDG are FAR more tanky. More wounds per point, 4+ spell ignore, -1 to enemy wound rolls.

 

56 minutes ago, PJetski said:

You need to put a lot of opportunity costs into making them worthwhile and I think that kind of deathstar playstyle has a lot of obvious weaknesses.

What are you talking about? There is no opportunity cost, they do everything, and dont need any help to do it. What are these many obvious weaknesses?

 

58 minutes ago, PJetski said:

You still need bodies for objectives, shooting to tear down screens, and the right support.

They count as 5 each. They shoot. They need 0 support.

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4 hours ago, PJetski said:

I don't think they are hot garbage. The problem with Castigators is that they don't particularly excel at anything - they don't have a specific niche. 

Castigators are more efficient than Ballista at 18" but don't have the versatility of switching to a 36" Rend-3 shot. Ballista are also the kind of unit that you want to bring in multiples because of the way they get buffed by an Ordinator, which doesn't leave a lot of room for Castigators on top of all that.

6 Castigators are better than 5 Bow Judicators... but you don't bring 5 Bow Judicators, you bring 10-15 and double tap them to delete something from 24" away on the first turn. Castigators can't do that.

Castigators could be useful if there was some way to make them battleline, like if a Lord-Ordinator was your general. Maybe I'm wrong and there's some all-in shooting list that could use them well, but I don't see those lists as a viable option for trying to go 5-0 consistently.

If we ever enter a DAEMON meta again Castigators shoot right up to S tier because they deal double damage to those. I'm working on a podcast right now and have moved Castigators up a few spots in the tier list after giving them more thought over the past few days.

Thank you for your replies and your patience. Can you explain to me what you would be specifically use the long range ballista shot for that makes them worth taking en masse over something like your Judicators or Longstrikes.

I think we're at a consensus that there isn't really a place for the 18" shooting of that level of damage, so my question is really what is the niche of the ballista at long range? It doesn't do much damage (even factoring in the -3 rend, you're looking at an average of about 2.5 damage against weak saves, 1.6 against a 2+ save with no buffs), it's not particularly reliable, and investing in e.g. 2 or 3 and an Ordinator is a huge investment that you rightly point out you could take 10-15 Judicators with.

Edited by Dogmantra
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4 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Thank you for your replies and your patience. Can you explain to me what you would be specifically using the long range ballista shot for that makes them worth taking en masse over something like your Judicators or Longstrikes.

I think we're at a consensus that there isn't really a place for the 18" shooting, so my question is really what is the niche of the ballista at long range? It doesn't do much damage (even factoring in the -3 rend, you're looking at an average of about 2.5 damage against weak saves, 1.6 against a 2+ save with no buffs), it's not particularly reliable, and investing in e.g. 2 or 3 and an Ordinator is a huge investment that you rightly point out you could take 10-15 Judicators with.

They're not worth taking. One costs the same as one stormdrake guard. Which has better shooting. :D

Being serious - you are correct, taking 2-3 ballista and an ordinator is a horrible idea. If you want to snipe stuff, take 6 longstrikes and a lord relictor to teleport them. If you want something to just shoot while being bodies on an objective, take judicators.

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I have made a list. How would you counter this?


Legends of Living Tempest (Scions of Storm)
Stormhost: Tempest Lords

Knight-Draconis (255)*
- General
- Command Trait: Master of Celestial Menagerie
- Mount Trait: Aetheric Swiftness
- Artefact: Mirrorshield

4 x Stormdrake Guard (570)*
2 x Stormdrake Guard (285)*
2 x Stormdrake Guard (285)*
2 x Stormdrake Guard (285)*
2 x Stormdrake Guard (285)*

*Battle Regiment

Holy Command: Thunderbold Volley Steadfast March

Total: 1965/2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 119
Drops: 1

Only one drop so usually go first.
4 Stormdrake Guards not only for one drop but they are good target for buffing (extra shooting from hero, unleash)
With extra movement in hero phase they can move 24'' and than shoot with 12'' range (36'' threat range in total). 12 stormdrakes deals average over 20 mortal wounds so most big heroes like Krondys/Alarielle/Teclis or key support heroes like Relictor/Gardus and/or big units like 4 Concussors/6 Longstrikes/20 Sentilens are dead at first turn. (and you can throw mortals every round!)
Against alpha striking armies when they don't start first they can defend using Unleash Hell on 4 Stormdrakes. It's enough to kill 2 Annihilators or at least one Fulminator. In the worst case they lose 2-4 stormdrakes but next turn they should clear all alpha striking forces with just only shooting.
List is very mobile so it's not problem to concentrate a few stormdrakes units on single enemy anvil unit and remove them fast one by one.
 

EDIT: No Thunderbold Volley for Drakes

Edited by Nozdormu
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24 minutes ago, macrake said:

Nah, just use the blades.

Drakes will guaranteed shoot and smash into whatever you want them to. Fulminators need a translocation. And their damage drops to half after charge. Annihilators do require support - lord imperatant. Otherwise you're banking on a 9" rerollable, which is only about 50%. Both of these are also no where near as tanky as SDG. And they dont take objectives.

Draconis is an amazing unit in itself for 255. He's not a useless one trick support like a lord-relictor or imperatant.

Uhm, this can be said for everything else you mentioned. SDG are FAR more tanky. More wounds per point, 4+ spell ignore, -1 to enemy wound rolls.

What are you talking about? There is no opportunity cost, they do everything, and dont need any help to do it. What are these many obvious weaknesses?

They count as 5 each. They shoot. They need 0 support.

Using the Blades offers more consistent damage but tips the value judgement further away from Drakes as hammer unit. They are a good anvil that can do significant damage, but they're not our best damage dealer.

Having to take the Menagerie Command Trait is an opportunity cost, because you give up another taking another Command Trait.

The Knight-Draconis is support. He is not worth 255 points without at least 1 unit of Stormdrakes in your list to take advantage of the breath double tap.

Save buffs are essential to keep your heavy investment in drakes around for more than a turn. That is support.

To clarify, my point is that Drakes are obviously good but building an entire list out of Drakes is inefficient.

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20 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Thank you for your replies and your patience. Can you explain to me what you would be specifically use the long range ballista shot for that makes them worth taking en masse over something like your Judicators or Longstrikes.

I think we're at a consensus that there isn't really a place for the 18" shooting of that level of damage, so my question is really what is the niche of the ballista at long range? It doesn't do much damage (even factoring in the -3 rend, you're looking at an average of about 2.5 damage against weak saves, 1.6 against a 2+ save with no buffs), it's not particularly reliable, and investing in e.g. 2 or 3 and an Ordinator is a huge investment that you rightly point out you could take 10-15 Judicators with.

It's all about list building. I think Ballistas fit very easily into many kinds of lists, while the Judicator/Raptor kill squad is more niche.

Judicators/Raptors are really good at killing something on the first turn with Thunderous Volley, but you may want to use a different Holy Command (like giving PALADINS +1 Attack, really strong with 15x Protectors) and you may not want to invest into getting more Enhancements. You can't use TV if your unit is in reserve with Scions, and it costs a Command Point. They cost 600/480 points so it's not always an obvious choice to slam them into your list.

After you kill something with Thunderous Volley you're left with an inefficient and immobile shooting unit that needs protection. In the case of 6 Raptors, they're also very fragile (only 12 wounds). They need a screen, and if you invest heavily into elite units like Stormdrakes you won't have many bodies around to keep to protect your shooting core. 

Ballistas are 9 wounds for 140 points and will put out the same 2+/2+ Rend-3 shots every turn. They're cheap enough that you can fit them into many lists and they don't require any traits to be effective.

I think all 3 units (Bow Judicators, Longstrikes, Ballista) are S tier for their own reasons.

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