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

[Dogmantra]

Ok, hypothetical trick that I have been mulling over this morning:

Lord Relictor with Translocation (and probably the reroll prayers general trait)
Lord Arcanum on Gryph Charger (and possibly Scintillating Trail as a mount trait)
Damage Endless Spell (optional)

Step 1: translocate LA on gryph to 9" away from enemy blob
Step 2: drop damaging Endless Spell (or thundershock, or chain lightning) right in enemies' faces
Step 3: in movement phase, use Ride the Winds Aetheric to teleport back to safety

You can do this early on before you're ready to alpha strike with whatever blob you want to teleport with your translocate, or you can do it the turn after to throw some extra damage out. I'm not sure how effective it will be, but it's also just a nice combo in general, letting your LA on gryph essentially be wherever he needs to be to cast a spell when he needs to cast it, rather than having to predict in advance where he'll need to be for your next hero phase. Just sit him with the Lord Relictor and translocate away. Would also be nice for dropping Mystic Shields or healings onto isolated flanking/forward deployed units without also risking losing the LA.

My question is: if you were going to do this, which damage endless spell would you go for? No point doing it on the comet because of the 36" range. The Celestian Vortex seems okay, especially against shooting armies, but it's a bit expensive. I'm thinking Purple Sun because if it goes wild, it's so far onto your opponent's side that it probably won't be able to hurt you much, or maybe Suffocating Gravetide? Maybe Burning Head for ultra budget, but that almost feels like a waste. What are your thoughts?

[Marcvs]

19 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

My question is: if you were going to do this, which damage endless spell would you go for? No point doing it on the comet because of the 36" range. The Celestian Vortex seems okay, especially against shooting armies, but it's a bit expensive. I'm thinking Purple Sun because if it goes wild, it's so far onto your opponent's side that it probably won't be able to hurt you much, or maybe Suffocating Gravetide? Maybe Burning Head for ultra budget, but that almost feels like a waste. What are your thoughts?

Yeah it's a fun trick (problem is no bonuses to cast and the presence of so many armies that can unbind your spell). You could use geminids to stop AoD and then proceed to shoot a juicy target

[macrake]

Not worth the points spent on the endless spell or use of the teleport. With no bonus to cast, it's getting unbound against so many lists.

[PrimeElectrid]

18 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Ok, hypothetical trick that I have been mulling over this morning:

Lord Relictor with Translocation (and probably the reroll prayers general trait)
Lord Arcanum on Gryph Charger (and possibly Scintillating Trail as a mount trait)
Damage Endless Spell (optional)

Step 1: translocate LA on gryph to 9" away from enemy blob
Step 2: drop damaging Endless Spell (or thundershock, or chain lightning) right in enemies' faces
Step 3: in movement phase, use Ride the Winds Aetheric to teleport back to safety

You can do this early on before you're ready to alpha strike with whatever blob you want to teleport with your translocate, or you can do it the turn after to throw some extra damage out. I'm not sure how effective it will be, but it's also just a nice combo in general, letting your LA on gryph essentially be wherever he needs to be to cast a spell when he needs to cast it, rather than having to predict in advance where he'll need to be for your next hero phase. Just sit him with the Lord Relictor and translocate away. Would also be nice for dropping Mystic Shields or healings onto isolated flanking/forward deployed units without also risking losing the LA.

My question is: if you were going to do this, which damage endless spell would you go for? No point doing it on the comet because of the 36" range. The Celestian Vortex seems okay, especially against shooting armies, but it's a bit expensive. I'm thinking Purple Sun because if it goes wild, it's so far onto your opponent's side that it probably won't be able to hurt you much, or maybe Suffocating Gravetide? Maybe Burning Head for ultra budget, but that almost feels like a waste. What are your thoughts?

I wouldn’t do this with a one cast general who has no casting bonuses. Any super caster will shut it down effortlessly.

In addition, none of the SCE spells are (imo) damaging enough to make this worthwhile either. Honestly comet is superior in that regard.

Its maybe worthwhile on Thundershock and Starfall. 

[macrake]

So stormcast on recent metawatch is on 32% win, hanging out with Gloomspite and BoC. Ofc it's pre battletome, but I just dont see this tome being much of an upgrade outside of translocation+fulminators and SDG. I sure hope people prove me wrong and GW do some serious considerations on how they point stuff.

[Marcvs]

39 minutes ago, macrake said:

So stormcast on recent metawatch is on 32% win, hanging out with Gloomspite and BoC. Ofc it's pre battletome, but I just dont see this tome being much of an upgrade outside of translocation+fulminators and SDG. I sure hope people prove me wrong and GW do some serious considerations on how they point stuff.

Again, I share some of the disappointement for the new book but I would avoid hasty doom&gloom before the book has even hit the tables. Even then, evaluating SCE win percentages is always tricky because of its role of "starting army". Many people bring lists which are not exactly the most optimised to tournaments. I was looking through the lists for Mancunian Carnage (next week I believe?) which will use the new tome and I once again got this feeling https://tabletop.to/mancunian-carnage-resurgence/lists

As for the present abysmal win percentage, the book is old and has been competitively bad (i.e. not podium material) for quite a while outside of anvilstrike and the 1-drop megabattalion, which we lost with 3.0. This impacts the win percentage in a less evident way: competitive players who aim for podiums will just start bringing other armies, thus hurting the win percentage even more than the simple weakness of the book

[PJetski]

1 hour ago, macrake said:

 I just dont see this tome being much of an upgrade outside of translocation+fulminators and SDG

We must be reading different books

[Souleater]

I think Thundershock is a decent spell for it’s AOE debuff. I’m fed up with people wounding me on 2+

[Starfyre]

8 hours ago, CommissarRotke said:

at this point I just want them to say more about 3.0 in general like... is this the Year of the Beast or not???

space on the board or space to plop them down from Scions? also, how do you like Pallador javelins in 3.0?

Space to put them down from Scions, we actually played on 6x4 but it was difficult to find a gap that 9" away from multiple units. Can see the value in the Imperant. 

The javelins were better than expected shooting wise, but then Sylvaneth have relatively low saves. Didn't get to fight in combat with, they charged a unit a Dryads but the unit had died to the retributors before I got chance to attack. However, on reading the statline I was like, should have modeled them with shockaxes

[NinthMusketeer]

6 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

22.2.4 on random characteristics says that if you need to know the value "at a time other than when it is being used to make an attack" then a d3 or d6 damage counts as 1. If it is being used to make an attack then you roll it and take the result as per usual.

Since making a save is part of the attack sequence, it's a bit of a weird one. As I am writing this I can't decide which I think is a more reasonable interpretation, but it comes down to one of two:

- A save is part of the random damage roll being used to make an attack, so you roll damage before the saves in this one case and get to reroll against anything that's not a 1 (pros: the artefact actually does something, save roll is part of the attack sequence, so it probably does fall under being used to make an attack)

- a save is not part of the random damage characteristic being used to make an attack, so as per 22.2.4 you treat d3 and d6 as 1, no rerolls for you. (Pros: respects the attack sequence, is more conservative which I like to err towards with ambiguous rules, takes less time than the alternative where you could be rolling 6 different saves)

As I'm writing this out I think I've convinced myself that you would break the normal attack sequence and roll damage before saves. But I think the best answer is to only bring this to events and make it the TO's problem instead of yours 😛

See this is particularly funny to me because I don't play in tournaments but rather run and/or act as a judge 😆

But yeah, it is definitely part of the attack sequence. Failing an FAQ I'll be going with averages due to the impracticality involved with rolling each damage and save separately. I suspect RAI is 'greater than 1' and someone reworded it without considering the conundrum.

[Scurvydog]

2 hours ago, Marcvs said:

https://tabletop.to/mancunian-carnage-resurgence/lists

I hope everyone will have a good time and surely many are bringing what they own here, but mboy I do not see most of these Stormcast list doing well at all. I see rather good lists from other factions, which mixed assortments of dominion box stuff and some random stuff thrown in there will not manage Archaon lists and the like. 

 

2 hours ago, macrake said:

So stormcast on recent metawatch is on 32% win, hanging out with Gloomspite and BoC. Ofc it's pre battletome, but I just dont see this tome being much of an upgrade outside of translocation+fulminators and SDG. I sure hope people prove me wrong and GW do some serious considerations on how they point stuff.

This is hard to say right now, but for sure I expect most stormcast competitive lists to have a solid ranged unit, either 10-15 judicators or 6 raptors, they are some of the strongest ranged units out there, combined with shooting twice they can really put a dent into many lists, by taking out key targets efficiently. Take 6 raptors, if you play against STD archaon for example you could probably rather reliably take out a chaos sorc in the hero phase and then warshrine in the shooting phase, doing that removes 2 sources of +1 save, making Archaon embarrasingly vulnerable right off the bat. Basically anyone relying on some key pieces will be scared and will not dare to deploy in range of a double shot initially. 

We should not entirely discount what the book offers, even if some stuff got the short end of the stick. You can make an army with battleline dudes with 2+ saves and rend 2 attacks with 3" reach, who can do that? A bunch of other stuff as well, however I always seem to be 150-200 pts short for all the stuff I want to do  

As the first AoS 3.0 book it will be super hard to predict the future of this book right now, sure if everyone else improves, then it will be terrible, but if some of all the rules bloat and gimmicks are reigned in a bit, Stormcast will do well by simply having a lot of solid warscrolls.

[xking]

2 hours ago, PJetski said:

We must be reading different books

What do you think of each type of Paladin now?

[Lucur]

6 minutes ago, xking said:

What do you think of each type of Paladin now?

The old issue with paladins was they're slow, no tougher than Liberators and even if they get to scrap, they can't compete with other elite units in the game (or Evocators within the same book). I'd argue all of these points have changed in the new book, the mobility part only partially due to translocation.

That said, Decimators are still meh, retributors are strong in a 5man squad and Protectors are superb in a larger unit (15 in KE? Yes please!) with their extra save and reach. Biggest issue with all of these remains delivery, even if you translocate and move, a key target can always relocate. And that's where Annihilators pull ahead imo, you just get an Imperatant and scions them in.

Just my 2 cts on paladins ^^

[PJetski]

9 minutes ago, xking said:

What do you think of each type of Paladin now?

All of them seem to be very good. Protectors and Grandhammers in particular are very strong.

Even Decimators aren't bad, but their niche sucks and so they look like a bad version of Protectors

[Nizrah]

Melee Prosecutors seems decenent now. 

[Champasaur]

FYI, Dracothion Guard and LA on Tauralon both went out of stock on GW’s site over the past two days. eBay is now really the only place to get them. And I doubt we’ll see any type of restock until the new models drop.

So if you want Dracothion guard you might want to get them on eBay before they’re gone.

[PJetski]

1 hour ago, Champasaur said:

FYI, Dracothion Guard and LA on Tauralon both went out of stock on GW’s site over the past two days. eBay is now really the only place to get them. And I doubt we’ll see any type of restock until the new models drop.

So if you want Dracothion guard you might want to get them on eBay before they’re gone.

Lots of people in The Stormkeep discord are snapping them up. Judicators and Paladins, too.

[Archibald]

2 hours ago, PJetski said:

Lots of people in The Stormkeep discord are snapping them up. Judicators and Paladins, too.

Can you link the discord server?

[Champasaur]

20 minutes ago, Archibald said:

Can you link the discord server?

https://discord.gg/WkUUCzGF

[PrimeElectrid]

6 hours ago, Champasaur said:

FYI, Dracothion Guard and LA on Tauralon both went out of stock on GW’s site over the past two days. eBay is now really the only place to get them. And I doubt we’ll see any type of restock until the new models drop.

So if you want Dracothion guard you might want to get them on eBay before they’re gone.

Currently waiting on a box of Dracoths myself

[Champasaur]

24 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:

Currently waiting on a box of Dracoths myself

I bought one box right before I made the post. Mostly because I'm petrified of certain models getting the Bloodknight treatment and we won't have any non-scalped models for sale.

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, Champasaur said:

I bought one box right before I made the post. Mostly because I'm petrified of certain models getting the Bloodknight treatment and we won't have any non-scalped models for sale.

if you don't play in GW stores / in tournaments which require GW only models, Artisan Guild has some nice 3d printable dracothian guard alternatives (in the Dragonguard set), but you'll need the weapons (from a paladins box for instance) because they only come with swords I think

Edited October 5, 2021 by Marcvs

[Phasteon]

8 hours ago, Champasaur said:

FYI, Dracothion Guard and LA on Tauralon both went out of stock on GW’s site over the past two days. eBay is now really the only place to get them. And I doubt we’ll see any type of restock until the new models drop.

So if you want Dracothion guard you might want to get them on eBay before they’re gone.

Good thing my 4 Fulminators will arrive today 😍

So hyped for my new battleline unit ! 

[CommissarRotke]

4 hours ago, Marcvs said:

if you don't play in GW stores / in tournaments which require GW only models, Artisan Guild has some nice 3d printable dracothian guard alternatives (in the Dragonguard set), but you'll need the weapons (from a paladins box for instance) because they only come with swords I think

uhh if you mean these, you need an entire rider not just weapons? https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-dragonling-knights-3-modular-units-with-mounts-143635 they look great but they're dragonkin

[Marcvs]

1 minute ago, CommissarRotke said:

uhh if you mean these, you need an entire rider not just weapons? https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-dragonling-knights-3-modular-units-with-mounts-143635 they look great but they're dragonkin

well, that depends on the kind of visual identity you're going for. I don't see a problem is some sort of reptilian race being reforged, so I would just put some stormcast heads, then the weapon hand goes with the weapons (as I said) and any stormcast shield will cover the other hand. all in all, they would be quite stormcast-y