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


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53 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

Anyone thinking of easy ways to convert the Knight Relictor into a Lord? I'm not sure what to do with the censer hand, and he's already got bones on his back so that censer is the likeliest candidate to change.

I was thinking of using the knight arcanum's staff, but then putting the censer on the top of the staff instead.

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4 hours ago, Enoby said:

As someone who has never played Stormcast or really played much against them, what's the general consensus on this book after the FAQs, if there is one?

Nerfs came just because people were crying and to avoid another sevireth-gate, with people comping stuff on tournaments.

The problem with traslocation was not the traslocation, was the relictor and fulminators. Having translocation on 4+ and just letting paladins or redeemers teleport would be a nice way to solve the problem instead of deleting the only movility shenanigan sce had. (Because no, imperatant is just marketing to force people to use annihilators)

****** the only one decent command trait just because “maybe” drake spam could be strong having armies that are just ****** and remains untouched for months or years (gitz, boc, slaneesh) or absolutely broken (seraphon, tzeentch, sob) with any buff/nerf just show the little respect they have for the balance of the game.

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Unpopular opinion, but I really like this book, I like all the options, and I like that old Models have uses, some are even optimal.   The "nerfs" don't bother me.   Think the book is competitive, and fun.   Its not perfect but what is?   Been playing Miniature games included GW since 1988, but what do I know.  

 

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4 hours ago, Nerdkingdan said:

Unpopular opinion, but I really like this book, I like all the options, and I like that old Models have uses, some are even optimal.   The "nerfs" don't bother me.   Think the book is competitive, and fun.   Its not perfect but what is?   Been playing Miniature games included GW since 1988, but what do I know.  

 

Fully agree, I played a game of "sub optimal" units the other day and still managed a minor victory. 

 

If an army/list was able to steam roll opponents for the majority of games I play then it wouldn't be much fun and require less tactical thinking. I would also be rather unpopular in my local gaming circle.

 

I play games to have fun and a tactical experience. Not stomp on the other player. 

 

Then again I'm not a WAAC player..

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Let‘s be real here. 

Stormcast are in a VERY good spot again, most people talking about actual game experience are more than happy, some dude at warhammer world even pulls of victory after victory it seems and every batrep I‘ve watched so far they made a very good performance + in my own games I‘ve never experienced them to be such a potent force before. 

Everyone talking trash about the army is either exaggerating massively, which is nothing new on the internet, especially in this forum (Which has a VERY negative atmosphere all around), or just tries to troll other people, ruining their fun for the army / game in general. 

If someone like @Ragest called the Lord-Imperatant a marketing trick to force me to play Annihilators at the LGS I‘d literally shut him down, telling him to annoy someone else. 

The internet is the only place people are anonymously allowed to talk such nonsense without any real consequences, in reallife people would either shut them down and put them in their place or avoid them. 

 

Edited by Phasteon
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“Some dude” = AoS senior product designer.

It’s a great achievement no doubt, but Ben Johnson could win an event with 5 sponges.

I don’t think anyone is saying the army is weak. We’re saying it’s uninspired, restrictive, and unfairly nerfed before models are even out when way worse ****** is out there and has run wild for months, meanwhile Ironjawz get buffs for no reason.

A few points hikes on key units (Dracoths, Longstrikes) will ruin this book competitively as these are currently doing all the heavy lifting. This is exactly what happened in 2nd: sacrosanct does all the heavy lifting, gets repeated points nerfs, fights first happened, dead.

We’re all adults here we can deal with reality without the need to sugar coat everything.

Edited by PrimeElectrid
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15 minutes ago, Phasteon said:

Stormcast are in a VERY good spot again, most people talking about actual game experience are more than happy, some dude at warhammer world even pulls of victory after victory it seems and every batrep I‘ve watched so far they made a very good performance + in my own games I‘ve never experienced them to be such a potent force before. 

As someone with no first-hand experience, that is my impression as well. My original prediction after the book dropped was that it has a lot of strong warscrolls in it, but would ultimately be too "fair" to really do well in tournaments. I though that Stormcast would be a gatekeeper faction that would beat bad lists on pure powerful fundamentals alone, but struggle against top-tier "rule-breaking" armies.

The recent tournament results call that into question, though, with the new book taking first place at four tournaments in the last few weeks. It seems it is mechanically strong enough to go the distance after all. Some of this might be due to people not yet knowing how to play against the army, but it's impossible to deny that an army which can win that many tournaments is viable.

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33 minutes ago, Phasteon said:

Let‘s be real here. 

Stormcast are in a VERY good spot again, most people talking about actual game experience are more than happy, some dude at warhammer world even pulls of victory after victory it seems and every batrep I‘ve watched so far they made a very good performance + in my own games I‘ve never experienced them to be such a potent force before. 

Everyone talking trash about the army is either exaggerating massively, which is nothing new on the internet, especially in this forum (Which has a VERY negative atmosphere all around), or just tries to troll other people, ruining their fun for the army / game in general. 

If someone like @Ragest called the Lord-Imperatant a marketing trick to force me to play Annihilators at the LGS I‘d literally shut him down, telling him to annoy someone else. 

The internet is the only place people are anonymously allowed to talk such nonsense without any real consequences, in reallife people would either shut them down and put them in their place or avoid them. 

 

I partially agree with your comments on the overall improved state of the Stormcasts. I have heard of several tournament winning lists this month across Europe, and I personally feel current Stormcast is still a solidly improved version of the last book; even though the latest GW statistics show Stormcasts being fourth lowest performing faction in 37 events held during the last two months(https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/10/21/metawatch-meet-the-warhammer-age-of-sigmar-armies-upsetting-the-meta-at-the-warhammer-open/).

But your general tone does not seem to differ that much from the negative hyperbole which you are now criticising. Your own anecdotal experience(e.g. "most people talking about actual game experience", "every batrep I've watched so far") can be dismissed as easily as you dismiss other players' varying degree of experience. 

While Ragest's comment does show generally negetivity attitude towards the tome, I do not think his comments on Lord-Imperatant and Annihilators are far from reality. While using Lord-Imperatant does not necessarily force players to use Annihilators, he does grant significant bonus and hence potentially make people consider running both him and the Annihilators. After all, all models are essentially part of GW marketing "trick" to be brutally honest - why should Lord-Imperatant be an exception?

Yet you are disparaging such comments by using caustic expressions such as "I‘d literally shut him down, telling him to annoy someone else" or "anonymously allowed to talk such nonsense without any real consequences". To me your comment actually rivals, if not transcends, the very same comments you are so vehemently blaming in terms of toxicity and hasty generalisation.

Edited by Sagittarii Orientalis
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55 minutes ago, Sagittarii Orientalis said:

I partially agree with your comments on the overall improved state of the Stormcasts. I have heard of several tournament winning lists this month across Europe, and I personally feel current Stormcast is still a solidly improved version of the last book; even though the latest GW statistics show Stormcasts being fourth lowest performing faction in 37 events held during the last two months(https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/10/21/metawatch-meet-the-warhammer-age-of-sigmar-armies-upsetting-the-meta-at-the-warhammer-open/).

But your general tone does not seem to differ that much from the negative hyperbole which you are now criticising. Your own anecdotal experience(e.g. "most people talking about actual game experience", "every batrep I've watched so far") can be dismissed as easily as you dismiss other players' varying degree of experience. 

While Ragest's comment does show generally negetivity attitude towards the tome, I do not think his comments on Lord-Imperatant and Annihilators are far from reality. While using Lord-Imperatant does not necessarily force players to use Annihilators, he does grant significant bonus and hence potentially make people consider running both him and the Annihilators. After all, all models are essentially part of GW marketing "trick" to be brutally honest - why should Lord-Imperatant be an exception?

Yet you are disparaging such comments by using caustic expressions such as "I‘d literally shut him down, telling him to annoy someone else" or "anonymously allowed to talk such nonsense without any real consequences". To me your comment actually rivals, if not transcends, the very same comments you are so vehemently blaming in terms of toxicity and hasty generalisation.

Ok, I might have overreacted a bit on that one. 

I‘m gonna enjoy the SCE games I‘m having this weekend, with my perfectly designed and very strong battletome that leads me to victory again and again. 

What a good job GW did. 

10/10 and its just getting better as soon as I got Bastian and Drakeguard. 

What a wonderful time to be in the hobby!

Edited by Phasteon
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On the one hand, we as SCE players have a right to be wary. On some measures, we have been the worst army. According to the Metawatch, we had the largest negative difference between the share of the meta and the actual wins. In other words, quite a few people were playing SCEs, but hardly anyone was winning with them. 
 

On the other hand, we cannot discount the results from the last two weekends, after our tome dropped. They have been spectacular. And not all lists have relied on moving after Translocation. Further, some of our best units are still incoming. 
 

I think the sensible approach now is to wait and see before pronouncing our book either objectively great or hopeless. There are multiple two-day events this weekend only. The data are coming. 

Further, it is probably unrealistic to expect a faction to have a very large number of different really strong competitive lists. In my experience, most competitive players will over time converge on a few/couple/one list, with some more or less minor variations. This is not really a point about AoS, but in my experience tends to be the case for competitive games more broadly. (If you are playing Izzet colours in Modern in MtG today, you probably want to have Ragavan and Murktide on your list. If you are playing Grey Knights competitively in WH40k, you should paint up your Dreadknights and Interceptors). It would be great if it were otherwise.

My personal hope is that we discover lists that are fun to play with and against, and that are competitive enough. I just want to go be able to go to a tournament or a LGS and know that with tight play and a bit of luck I can do well, and that both players can enjoy the experience. And if somebody is more competitive than that, there is always Tom Mawdsley’s (pretty filthy) Knights-Judicator list…

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4 minutes ago, Phasteon said:

If people feel the need to call the book or the authors trash, GW evil because they nerf SCE as the only army ever because they hate the faction so much I guess it‘s just their opinion. 

Joke, I still hate those people and will openly admit that. 

If you want to hate on something for no reason on a place thats created to talk constructive if not positive about something you should be prepared for having a bad time.

funnily enough, searching for "trash" in this topic shows that this word has been used by you 3 out of the 4 last times it was used (and if you are curious, there's no instance where someone called the book or the authors trash).

It's great to share this space with someone who HATES people he disagrees with about a game. That's surely a sign of positivity and constructive talk.

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13 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

funnily enough, searching for "trash" in this topic shows that this word has been used by you 3 out of the 4 last times it was used (and if you are curious, there's no instance where someone called the book or the authors trash).

It's great to share this space with someone who HATES people he disagrees with about a game. That's surely a sign of positivity and constructive talk.

You dont have to write the word trash to actually mean trash, you know that right?

And you want to tell me that nobody in this thread trashtalked the whole tome or the ruleswriters (also the FAQ team) the last weeks? 

Also I dont „HATE“ people that disagree with me generally speaking.

You obviously disagree with me and I harbor no hard feelings against you. 

But yeah, generally I hate people joining a forum just to write „Everything in this tome is bad, capitalistic, uninspired ****** and GW is either incompetent or hating this faction!“ - just for the record, nobody exactly wrote it like that - but thats the message they are sending.

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32 minutes ago, feadair said:

Further, it is probably unrealistic to expect a faction to have a very large number of different really strong competitive lists.

This is important to consider. The only books currently sitting on top due to overall incredibly powerful rules across the board are Lumineth and Tzeentch. Everything in the lumineth book is just at worst B+ tier to S tier stuff and it even has a couple of very different 5-0 "S tier" builds. Tzeentch also has different builds, although a bit less variation perhaps, but still very powerful core allegiance abilities that elevates everything else.

Most other books are not the same though. DoK is a top list because of Morathi, StD is up there only because of Archaon (and possibly Belakor, Legion of the first prince is basically the same 1 gimmick list everyone uses, generously calling it "the players choice list", which is a nice way of saying WAAC ;) I do not think Sons really fit into any of this, they are just so different in the way they play.

Stormcast lands in an odd spot, as they basically have no strong core, with almost no allegiance abilities at all, meaning everything relies on warscrolls and their pts cost. In a book over 70+ warscrolls this is basically a compendium and some warscrolls just end up as bad, as there is nothing attached to them to elevate them, or that gives them any purpose within some wider mechanics. Like the demon books they usually have odd units that are not great warscrolls, yet they still fit into the book mechanics, such as blood reavers that fuels your primary resource in a cheap way, which makes them good despite a poor warscroll. There is no sucjh saving grace for the poor stormcast scrolls.

So while I am perfectly happy with the new warscrolls as my army was already dracoths, stardrake, judicators and raptors, what about the guy who used the old vanguard battalion list? Sacrosanct list are also just poor and I very much doubt we will see those on many top tables.

So it all depends on the success criteria I guess, can the new Stormcast book produce competitive lists? Sure! Does it have some powerful warscrolls? Yes about a dozen perhaps (which is far more than some others get and even more than some entire factions!). 

I think there is a missed opportunity here of making the chambers and stormhosts more unique. Soulblight being a prime example of this, where you see many great and varied lists, from the different dynasties that significantly spices up how the army is played, also with the same warscrolls behaving different between them and specific builds. I think the stormcast are missing this, as nothing will change much between builds, besides the warscrolls themselves and that I feel is a bit of a shame. But what do I care, I can just charge things with my fulminators and pew pew raptors, until uncle GW brings out the pts nerf belt ;)

Edited by Scurvydog
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31 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

Stormcast lands in an odd spot, as they basically have no strong core, with almost no allegiance abilities at all, meaning everything relies on warscrolls and their pts cost. In a book over 70+ warscrolls this is basically a compendium and some warscrolls just end up as bad, as there is nothing attached to them to elevate them, or that gives them any purpose within some wider mechanics.

I think this is right, and it is the reason I think it's hyperbolic when people say that half of the warscrolls in the book are bad. They are not bad, they are outclassed. The difference is that with a bad unit, that unit had no role in the game or performs that role badly. That's not the case for most Stormcast warscrolls, where most of them have a role and can perfrom fine in it, but there is just another unit in the same book that performs it better or cheaper.

In both cases, the result is the same as far as competitive games are concerned: The unit in question won't see play. But they are not the same for casual games. You can run an army with all outclassed models and perform perfectly well in those settings.

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I'm still gonna have fun playing with my Stormcast, I love them and I love playing them, but if I'm honest this version of the book is kinda dull, a lot of missed opportunities it feels. There are a lot of warscrolls that are so close to being interesting if GW had been a little creative. The warscrolls that ARE good are pretty simple, and that mostly comes down to decent profiles with appropriate or low point costs.

AoS is a pretty long-term hobby so hopefully we see some updates alongside the usual point updates in the form of campaign books, erratas and whatever else they can think of. Until then, I can be thankful that there's still cool stuff to play with, even if it is a bit simple, after all, simple can still be fun. Hell, I just got some Dracothian guard that I'll magnetise, first thing I'll try are tempestors. I'm also extremely excited to play with Bastian, just such a sick model.

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Let me just say that I don't think Stormcast are currently bad.  We are not bad at all.  At no point did I ever say the book doesn't have power.  I feel that prime electrid is right though, a few points changes and we are bounced from competitive.  

Anyway, my main point is that it is crazy that we had a nerf on menagerie with literally no data to support it.  Before the models are even out.  It's crazy and unprecedented and reeks of appeasing stormcast hate.  Again, I'm not happy about translocation, but I understand why they did it, I get it.  Cycle of the Storm was GW being GW with terrible wording, so I understand and probably even agree with that one.  Would have been nice if Cycle wasn't so weak, but I digress.  The menagerie thing though is not ok at all.  Imagine the outcry if they nerfed other models from other armies with zero data to back it up and before the models were even out.  The internet would be busting out the torches and pitch forks.

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17 minutes ago, Celestantpants said:

Anyway, my main point is that it is crazy that we had a nerf on menagerie with literally no data to support it.  Before the models are even out.  It's crazy and unprecedented and reeks of appeasing stormcast hate. 

Then dragon rules were revealed, I don't think I'll have been the only one to know that a nerf was coming. I thought it might just be in a points increase but there you go. Still think they'll get a points increase as well. 

The cynic in me though, I kinda don't think the Menagerie nerf was due to outcry. I kinda think it might've been planned by GW all along. Fits their modus operandi: release OP model, reap the financial rewards, nerf model. The only hiccup though was the delay to the dragons, which would have cost them a fair amount. 

Hey ho, as said, just being a cynic. For what it's worth, I'm a fan of the book even after the faq. Selfishly, I'm not the best player so I'm not too bothered about nerfs as even with a meta army I still get trounced. 

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11 minutes ago, lare2 said:

Then dragon rules were revealed, I don't think I'll have been the only one to know that a nerf was coming. I thought it might just be in a points increase but there you go. Still think they'll get a points increase as well. 

The cynic in me though, I kinda don't think the Menagerie nerf was due to outcry. I kinda think it might've been planned by GW all along. Fits their modus operandi: release OP model, reap the financial rewards, nerf model. The only hiccup though was the delay to the dragons, which would have cost them a fair amount. 

Hey ho, as said, just being a cynic. For what it's worth, I'm a fan of the book even after the faq. Selfishly, I'm not the best player so I'm not too bothered about nerfs as even with a meta army I still get trounced. 

I'm getting older, I've been in management, my experience tells me most conspiracies are just incompetence that accidentally benefits those in charge...    I used to smoke and sit outside with the regular employees and listen to them complain how management was working to get them, then go sit in the management meetings as they obliviously made the same mistakes over and over.   I would say hey the employees think your trying to trick them when you keep changing policy, they would say "we are just trying to make it better".  Management would then have a new bad idea next week.   Usually conspiracy is just incompetence.

Edited by Nerdkingdan
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Ultimately I think frustration with all of this has less to do with the changes themselves (though I'm sure they're annoying to many!) and more to do with how much of a black box GW is when it comes to their balancing. We just don't know what metrics they're looking at or what processes they use to come to their decisions (vanquishers lol), especially when we have our own community theorycrafters and thinkers who kind of guide the way we view the game. We're basically grasping at straws, and that leads to people coming up with their own explanations for why things are the way they are (sin guy/bin guy, GW designer favoritism, etc.). Kind of like primitive humans trying to explain why the crops suck this year, it's kind of funny.

GW should really take a page from *good* competitive videogame developers and start being more transparent - explaining their balance changes, talking through their design philosophy for factions, stuff like that. They should really be publicly playtesting their battletomes and soliciting feedback before release but that seems like a bridge too far for a company this opaque. Maybe they could be convinced to put stuff like that behind the Warhammer + paywall. I'm sure people would be willing to pay for early access to faction rules.

… Sorry if I just spoke that into existence. 

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Pushing people to buy new kits, by giving those kits a bump in power over older models is like... the entirety of GW's buying model so I have no idea why Ragest was attacked for saying that. After seeing our old handful of movement abilities removed or gutted, AND Imperatant only affecting Thunderstrike, it is pretty clear what the deal is. You can love the book and still recognize this.

I don't hate or even dislike our new tome by any means, either. It's most frustration I guess? Scurvy's post nailed how I feel: maybe this was necessary to 'balance' all the warscrolls yet it doesn't stop the feeling that something is missing. (other than keywords of course...)

3 hours ago, Scurvydog said:

Stormcast lands in an odd spot, as they basically have no strong core, with almost no allegiance abilities at all, meaning everything relies on warscrolls and their pts cost. In a book over 70+ warscrolls this is basically a compendium and some warscrolls just end up as bad, as there is nothing attached to them to elevate them, or that gives them any purpose within some wider mechanics. Like the demon books they usually have odd units that are not great warscrolls, yet they still fit into the book mechanics, such as blood reavers that fuels your primary resource in a cheap way, which makes them good despite a poor warscroll. There is no sucjh saving grace for the poor stormcast scrolls.

...

I think there is a missed opportunity here of making the chambers and stormhosts more unique. Soulblight being a prime example of this, where you see many great and varied lists, from the different dynasties that significantly spices up how the army is played, also with the same warscrolls behaving different between them and specific builds. I think the stormcast are missing this, as nothing will change much between builds, besides the warscrolls themselves and that I feel is a bit of a shame. But what do I care, I can just charge things with my fulminators and pew pew raptors, until uncle GW brings out the pts nerf belt ;)

 

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The fact that dragons aren’t out shouldn’t mean that they don’t get nerfed; but rather that GW should address the stuff that is out and genuinely unpleasant.

Its the contradiction/hypocrisy that’s the problem, exacerbated by the fact that they could do something but choose not to.

(and also the fact that the writers are so far ahead that they consider the problem already solved and forget that everyone else plays the game as it is now).

Edited by PrimeElectrid
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26 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

Pushing people to buy new kits, by giving those kits a bump in power over older models is like... the entirety of GW's buying model so I have no idea why Ragest was attacked for saying that. After seeing our old handful of movement abilities removed or gutted, AND Imperatant only affecting Thunderstrike, it is pretty clear what the deal is. You can love the book and still recognize this.

I don't hate or even dislike our new tome by any means, either. It's most frustration I guess? Scurvy's post nailed how I feel: maybe this was necessary to 'balance' all the warscrolls yet it doesn't stop the feeling that something is missing. (other than keywords of course...)

 

I'm not convinced that this is the case yet when half the new Stormcast range seems to be DOA - Vanquishers, Vigilors, Knight Arcanum, Knight Relictor, Mr. Banner guy - and a bunch more are decent but not OP like Yndrasta, chariot, Vindictors, Bastian, and maybe the Knight Judicator? Annihilator/Imperatant and drakes look good for sure, but it seems like the staple of Stormcast lists thus far are all old models - Libs, Longstrikes, Lord Relictors, and perhaps Dracoths.

Obviously it's too early to be sure of anything yet since most of the range isn't out yet, but if GW was so intent on using power creep to push us to buy new stuff they'd make all the new stuff good, wouldn't they? Or at least most of it? Because a lot of thunderstrike stuff seems like hot garbage.

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