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

[Dogmantra]

On 10/14/2021 at 7:42 PM, Stormblood said:

Been lurking for a few days reading this thread, interesting stuff, returning to AOS from about 1.5 years of 40k.  SCE is all Ive played in 1st and 2nd ed.  Since I haven't seen anyone mention them, curious to why no one is mentioning the Ballistae anymore, they were everywhere last I played (I have 2).  Not worth taking these days?  

The ballista got hosed with the new book. It has a couple of upsides compared to other shooting units but they are upsides that don't make a huge amount of sense and sort of work against each other. One upside is the extra range, but to use the 36" range you have to use the weaker attack profile. The other upside is that it has more wounds than similar ranged units and doesn't lose effectiveness when damaged because it's a single model, which again is counterintuitive with the long range which should mean safety, and it is not that much more durable: if it gets charged by something decent in combat it's still going to die.

Looking at the attacks one by one, the long range attack looks appealing at first. -3 rend, d6 damage. But if you think about it, it's still so underwhelming. Let's say you have a +1 to hit because that's not too difficult, so you're on 2+ hit 2+ wound. That means that even before the save, 1/3 of the time your shot will do absolutely nothing. Say then that the rend is good enough that you completely deny your opponent a save, so you do d6 damage. That's only a bit over 2 damage on average when you factor in missed shots, and that's in a very favourable situation, the only way it could get better is rerolling 1s to hit or wound. It's just so, so unreliable.

The rapid fire attack is, if I remember correctly, more damage in every case than the long range shot so you really ideally want to be using that. Except it's about 2/3 effective as the old version. Again assuming a +1 to hit, the old version would average two hits, becoming 2d6 hits. The new version only gets 2d6 attacks total, on a 3+ to hit you then lose a third of those attacks. The profiles are the same from there.

And to add insult to injury, it went up 20 points.

What to add instead? Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrikes do the long same job better in nearly every way, and that's accounting for points cost. 2 Ballistae match up unfavourably against a unit of 3 Longstrikes.

If you only have a few points spare and were going to just throw one in to use up your last points, you could take Judicators, both flavours of which putclass the Ballista. If you had enough points, or if you were really on a strict budget, you can pick up 3 Castigators for 25 points less than a Ballista as a total throwaway unit and they will do more damage. Or if you want the longrange pings of damage on a strict budget, you could even just bring a Knight Incantor with Lightning Blast, have them sit at the back and ping off d3 mortals each turn. Then you also get to roll unbinding rolls, cast Mystic Shield if you need it, and the once per game unbind.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Dogmantra

[PrimeElectrid]

2 hours ago, Chronos said:

Any thoughts on Praetors?

Seem decent but not sure if they are worth the points.

There are no characters you can buy currently that are worth investing in Praetors. Either the character has a ward already, or you are doubling their cost (just bring another character), or you can protect them with Mirrorshield.

Now when the big dragons are out they may be a choice.

[Marcvs]

13 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:

There are no characters you can buy currently that are worth investing in Praetors. Either the character has a ward already, or you are doubling their cost (just bring another character), or you can protect them with Mirrorshield.

Now when the big dragons are out they may be a choice.

I'd say Gardus might be worth it.

[CommissarRotke]

4 hours ago, Chronos said:

Any thoughts on Praetors?

Seem decent but not sure if they are worth the points.

yea the play right now is mainly on Gardus

[CommissarRotke]

post tripled

Edited October 15, 2021 by CommissarRotke

[CommissarRotke]

double p*st

Edited October 15, 2021 by CommissarRotke

[PJetski]

The Stormkeep #7 is live now

This time we talk about noteworthy ally and coalition units we can use in Stormcast armies

[Lengthster]

I feel like people really underrate praetors. Yeah you can give a hero a mirrorshield to protect them from shooting. But praetors also protect from spells, random MW abilities and even melee. Each one basically has the same attack profile as a hero, some other minor things they provide are look out sir (3 models) and extra bodies for objectives. Additionally their footprint can stop the hero from getting surrounded.

They aren't incredible but they do provide some damn good protection. Great for Gardus, or with another hero it means you can put a different artifact on them like an arcane tome or something. If you have an amulet on a Stardrake or similar, the extra enhancement you get from a battalion could go towards something else.

[Eulailah]

3 hours ago, Lengthster said:

I feel like people really underrate praetors. Yeah you can give a hero a mirrorshield to protect them from shooting. But praetors also protect from spells, random MW abilities and even melee. Each one basically has the same attack profile as a hero, some other minor things they provide are look out sir (3 models) and extra bodies for objectives. Additionally their footprint can stop the hero from getting surrounded.

They aren't incredible but they do provide some damn good protection. Great for Gardus, or with another hero it means you can put a different artifact on them like an arcane tome or something. If you have an amulet on a Stardrake or similar, the extra enhancement you get from a battalion could go towards something else.

And also, the minis look absolutely amazing, I love them

[The World Tree]

4 hours ago, Lengthster said:

I feel like people really underrate praetors. Yeah you can give a hero a mirrorshield to protect them from shooting. But praetors also protect from spells, random MW abilities and even melee. Each one basically has the same attack profile as a hero, some other minor things they provide are look out sir (3 models) and extra bodies for objectives. Additionally their footprint can stop the hero from getting surrounded.

They aren't incredible but they do provide some damn good protection. Great for Gardus, or with another hero it means you can put a different artifact on them like an arcane tome or something. If you have an amulet on a Stardrake or similar, the extra enhancement you get from a battalion could go towards something else.

What's good about them is that they fulfil a specific role. I don't mean that facetiously. Given how we have too many slightly different versions of the same unit, it is nice to have defined roles.

[Jymmy]

It would be really cool if the praetors ability worked on cities of sigmar models… I would be tempted to give the general +adjuntant a try, and as a CoS player I love to have an excuse to use stormcast models

[CommissarRotke]

10 hours ago, Lengthster said:

I feel like people really underrate praetors. Yeah you can give a hero a mirrorshield to protect them from shooting. But praetors also protect from spells, random MW abilities and even melee. Each one basically has the same attack profile as a hero, some other minor things they provide are look out sir (3 models) and extra bodies for objectives. Additionally their footprint can stop the hero from getting surrounded.

They aren't incredible but they do provide some damn good protection. Great for Gardus, or with another hero it means you can put a different artifact on them like an arcane tome or something. If you have an amulet on a Stardrake or similar, the extra enhancement you get from a battalion could go towards something else.

seeing as we're probably getting Translocate FAQ'd, due to people yelling about it before SCE are even using our full book in tournaments, I think praetors will come up in more lists.

[Celestantpants]

How sure are we that translocate will get faq'd?  

[PrimeElectrid]

42 minutes ago, Celestantpants said:

How sure are we that translocate will get faq'd?  

Volume and intensity of the outrage/house ruling.

[lare2]

27 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:

Volume and intensity of the outrage/house ruling.

I see it a lot on the Internet but I'm yet to meet anyone in my local area who's bothered. It's ridiculous that tournies are house ruling it out though. 

[Nizrah]

1 hour ago, Celestantpants said:

How sure are we that translocate will get faq'd?  

With rage of community im nearly sure. I would bet 10$. 

[Celestantpants]

The stormcast hate in the community is real.  How dare stormcast have a good tool.  I suppose some will only be happy if stormcast end up with nothing interesting ever.

[Dogmantra]

2 hours ago, lare2 said:

I see it a lot on the Internet but I'm yet to meet anyone in my local area who's bothered. It's ridiculous that tournies are house ruling it out though. 

hot take but it honestly makes the competitive scene look like a joke that major tournaments are house ruling translocate immediately after the book came out despite it having worked like this since the 3rd ed FAQ.

[Sagittarii Orientalis]

I doubt GW would go as far as that. GW is surprisingly hesitant and slow when it comes to nerfing certain factions. 

While this is an example from 40k but, it took weeks of podium domination and steady win rate of 60% or more before GW slightly nerfed Adeptus Mechanicus and Drukhari. And even then both factions are still enjoying absurdly high win rate(60~70%) in tournament matchups.

And the new stormcast obviously has not reached that level. Also I believe GW has already made their intentions on translocation clear by maintaining its current form in multiple 3rd ed. FAQs. That, and cutting down nearly every mobility buffs stormcast already had. My pood knight heraldor!

However if the rumours on translocation actually turns out to be true ... then maybe I really should go all out for spamming knight judicator, or what ever shooting units stormcast has. If this is the "list diversity" which haters of translocation think will be achieved by nerf, so be it.

Or maybe I could stop playing and just focus on painting as I lose my faith towards GW's capability to adjust balance reasonably.

Edited October 17, 2021 by Sagittarii Orientalis

[feadair]

Ben Johnson (of Warhammer Design Studio) currently 3-0 with this list at Warhammer World (40 players):

[feadair]

2 minutes ago, feadair said:

Ben Johnson (of Warhammer Design Studio) currently 3-0 with this list at Warhammer World (40 players):

The list in flesh (note that it is being played as Hammers of Sigmar); beautiful stuff:

[Marcvs]

59 minutes ago, feadair said:

The list in flesh (note that it is being played as Hammers of Sigmar); beautiful stuff:

It also looks like they're painted as anvils of the heldenhammer, which is kind of fun considering the specific FAQ on this point.

[feadair]

1 minute ago, Marcvs said:

It also looks like they're painted as anvils of the heldenhammer, which is kind of fun considering the specific FAQ on this point.

It is a pretty stupid FAQ. I hope it gets ignored by everyone.

[AdamR]

So I have my first 3.0 tournament coming up next week, although lists have to be in today, so I thought I'd let you guys give this to a kicking...

Tournament is allowing movement after translocation.

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
- Mortal Realm: Ghur
- Grand Strategy:
- Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders
Lord-Relictor (145)*
- General
- Command Trait: High Priest
- Artefact: Mirrorshield
- Prayer: Translocation
Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-Charger (195)*
- Mount Trait: Aetheric Swiftness
- Spell: Celestial Blades
Yndrasta, The Celestial Spear (320)*

Battleline
5 x Vindictors (130)*
5 x Vindictors (130)*
10 x Judicators with Boltstorm Crossbows (380)*
- Reinforced x 1

Units
10 x Protectors (450)*
- 4x Starsoul Maces
- Reinforced x 1
5 x Retributors (235)*

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Additional Enhancements
Holy Command: Thunderbolt Volley

Total: 1985 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 107
Drops: 1
 

I'm also considering swapping out yndrasta for the celestant prime, but then I'd be losing out on bringing back 1 or 2 paladins a turn.

Also I could change out the Arcanum on gryph charger for a dracoline to be a bit hittier, but I think the chargers mobility may be better.

Or I could take out yndastra and the Arcanum, and just shove in an amulet of destiny Stardrake...

Other considerations - could go Command Entourage and Redemption Brotherhood battalions instead which would give me an extra enhancement but increase drops to 4.

Stormhost wise I was thinking celestial warbringers for the rerolls or astral templars for the ignore monstrous rampages.

No idea on grand strategy... Beast master if I take the Stardrake...

So thoughts/suggestions/ideas?

[Lucur]

10 hours ago, lare2 said:

I see it a lot on the Internet but I'm yet to meet anyone in my local area who's bothered. It's ridiculous that tournies are house ruling it out though. 

Totally agree, imagine we see a tourney banning Foot of Gork or Protection of Teclis

Caveat: Translocation wasn't totally banned though, just the move after setup part, right? Not making it much better, but...