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

[NauticalSoup]

I just want to play my 2.0 sacrosanct without feeling bad about... ...literally every single unit in the list?

Maybe not the Incantor? The Incantor's a'ight.

[OkayestDM]

3 minutes ago, NauticalSoup said:

I just want to play my 2.0 sacrosanct without feeling bad about... ...literally every single unit in the list?

Maybe not the Incantor? The Incantor's a'ight.

I hear that. A moderate points drop across the Chamber (and a solid rewrite of Cycle the Storm) would help. The Ballista could use something to make it a compelling alternative to Longstrikes and Judicators.

I like the Lord Exorcist, but his ability is really only good when you know you're facing a Death faction, and then only if you have him in the right place. (A model that shines brightest in casual play, when you know what army your opponent is playing.)

[Doko]

If they are nerfing every playable unit of our book then i hope others units as stardrakes and new big dragons get also a huge buff to be playble,as a ward save or 100+ decrease in points

[NauticalSoup]

3 hours ago, OkayestDM said:

I hear that. A moderate points drop across the Chamber (and a solid rewrite of Cycle the Storm) would help. The Ballista could use something to make it a compelling alternative to Longstrikes and Judicators.

I like the Lord Exorcist, but his ability is really only good when you know you're facing a Death faction, and then only if you have him in the right place. (A model that shines brightest in casual play, when you know what army your opponent is playing.)

I'd be happy with celestars just being cheap. They don't have to be punishingly good individually, but they need one or the other.

The Exorcist has the same problem - boy howdy he's expensive for a single cast wizard whose gimmick does nothing against most armies. His warscroll spell could be worth it, if he didn't cost 50 points over another wizard with negligible added utility. Irritatingly that was a unit I've owned for ages and wanted to see fixed up, but instead he and like half the book lost even the few negligible reasons to ever give them a second look.

Right now the big issue is nothing does anything interesting or noteworthy. In a world where we have so many virtually identical, largely interchangable warscrolls, there's absolutely no mechanical reason to touch almost any of them. In nearly every case it's a strict downgrade and nothing else

The lack of true incremental options as well (and the removal of many that DID exist) mean 3.0 SCE have this even worse than Nu Space Marines. It's... sad.

[Sagittarii Orientalis]

As an owner of a battery consisting of 4 celestar ballistas, even 10 points discount per model would be appreciated. 

Better solution would be increasing the consistency of the damage output. D6 damage for a single shot that has to hit, wound, and hope for the enemy to fail save is too unreliable for its cost. 

Changing the damage characteristic for the single shot profile to 2d3 would improve ballista's performance in this regard. Or maybe d3+3, just like how damage characteristics of some iconic heavy weaponry(lascannon) in 40K are changing into.

In fact I'd rather see all d6 characteristics, which are not exclusive to stormcast warscrolls, removed altogether from the game.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Sagittarii Orientalis

[NauticalSoup]

Agreed. I'd also be happy, as an owner of 4, with even a small discount. Their statline is probably fine it's just bonkers they cost 140 a pop when you look at the other stuff swinging in at that pricepoint. Both the Warclans book and the SCE one have, frankly abysmal internal balance. For SCE that isn't exactly a radical change given the garbage fire that was the 2.0 book, but for Warclans it's kind of embarrassing to see an entire arm of the force just dumped on like that when the 2.0 book was so tight.

It honestly doesn't give me a lot of hope for 3.0 going forward- either this low standard is what we have to live with for the edition, or even more likely, as ALWAYS happens these books will somehow end up just confused and unfinished next to what comes later because the writers hadn't settled on any coherent design philosophy for the edition by the time they were written.

That, and "First Book Disease" motivating GW to nerf all your good units out of the game before anyone else even has a book.

[Yondaime]

On 12/6/2021 at 3:42 PM, Nizrah said:

If rewritte happen i guess it would be remove double move or nerf on shooting. 

Damn this will make them drop from broken to useless XD

 

Tbh Longstrike are not the problem per se, but with 2 tap and overwatch (cant still believe they putted that meccanic in aos) being a thing they are very VERY strong

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Yondaime

[Celestantpants]

21 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

Damn this will make them drop from broken to useless XD

 

Tbh Longstrike are not the problem per se, but with 2 tap and overwatch (cant still believe they putted that meccanic in aos) being a thing they are very VERY strong

 

GW doesn't deal in half measures, the nuclear option is the only option....unless you are drukari in 40k.

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, Celestantpants said:

unless you are drukari in 40k.

[Tizianolol]

I hope point reduction for vigilors, they are clearly overcosted 

[Lord Krungharr]

I've only got a couple Stormcast units for my Cities army, a Lord-Arcanum on Gryph and 2 Dracoths (magnetized for Concussors or Fulminators).  Thinking about getting a Knight-Heraldor and 2 more Dracoths to make a unit of 4 Fulminators.  But wondering if the Heraldor makes them run and charge, can they still spit lightning?  Or is it a choice between running or shooting?

Also the Lord-Arcanum is way too many points!  

[readercolin]

7 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

I've only got a couple Stormcast units for my Cities army, a Lord-Arcanum on Gryph and 2 Dracoths (magnetized for Concussors or Fulminators).  Thinking about getting a Knight-Heraldor and 2 more Dracoths to make a unit of 4 Fulminators.  But wondering if the Heraldor makes them run and charge, can they still spit lightning?  Or is it a choice between running or shooting?

Also the Lord-Arcanum is way too many points!  

Have you looked at the new warscrolls?  Because if you haven't, I have bad, bad news.  Aka, the heraldor no longer allows run and charge - he can toot his horn to blow up terrain, but that is all he does anymore.

[Marcvs]

9 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

I've only got a couple Stormcast units for my Cities army, a Lord-Arcanum on Gryph and 2 Dracoths (magnetized for Concussors or Fulminators).  Thinking about getting a Knight-Heraldor and 2 more Dracoths to make a unit of 4 Fulminators.  But wondering if the Heraldor makes them run and charge, can they still spit lightning?  Or is it a choice between running or shooting?

Also the Lord-Arcanum is way too many points!  

Unfortunately the heraldor has lost that ability with the new battletome. But to answer your question: yes if you're give the dracoths run and charge (and they run) you will not be able to shoot with them

[Nozdormu]

21 minutes ago, Lord Krungharr said:

I've only got a couple Stormcast units for my Cities army, a Lord-Arcanum on Gryph and 2 Dracoths (magnetized for Concussors or Fulminators).  Thinking about getting a Knight-Heraldor and 2 more Dracoths to make a unit of 4 Fulminators.  But wondering if the Heraldor makes them run and charge, can they still spit lightning?  Or is it a choice between running or shooting?

Also the Lord-Arcanum is way too many points!  

You don't need run & charge. Just play Living City with Fulminators.

[Lord Krungharr]

Bah, humbug!  Guess I won't bother with the Heraldor then.  Living City seems like the most fun City.  Besides Azyr that is LONG LIVE SIGMAR!

[NauticalSoup]

I have a knight heraldor still in the blister and it pisses me off just thinking about it

[Tizianolol]

Guys about a unit of 4 stormdrake guard. If my opponent kill a single drake,  he score one additional point because he has kelled a monter?

[Siorra]

15 minutes ago, Tizianolol said:

Guys about a unit of 4 stormdrake guard. If my opponent kill a single drake,  he score one additional point because he has kelled a monter?

Each individual model counts as a monster, so yes, the first one that dies per turn gives away a point.

[Naem]

wtf guys, I dropped AoS for a while to focus more on 40k, then saw all this amazing new units and a new book and thought "sweet". Just dropped like 300 Euros on Dragons and the new sword dudes and looked forward to not sucking SCE and now you are telling me, we are getting nerfed to death again before I even put together my new models? :((( 

And also - Vindictors are not as good as Liberators? I thought the ability to fight from two lines was very nice...and Annihilators are also only good with the great hammer option? Soooo why did I get two parts of the newish starter set, seems like actually nothing of that is viable? Oh my, I might just go back to my Marines  

[Celestantpants]

31 minutes ago, Naem said:

wtf guys, I dropped AoS for a while to focus more on 40k, then saw all this amazing new units and a new book and thought "sweet". Just dropped like 300 Euros on Dragons and the new sword dudes and looked forward to not sucking SCE and now you are telling me, we are getting nerfed to death again before I even put together my new models? :((( 

And also - Vindictors are not as good as Liberators? I thought the ability to fight from two lines was very nice...and Annihilators are also only good with the great hammer option? Soooo why did I get two parts of the newish starter set, seems like actually nothing of that is viable? Oh my, I might just go back to my Marines  

Barring a war scroll rewrite (which seems likely given the rumors) the Stormdrake guard are still good.  Sadly, yes, the Vanquishers (sword dudes) are frankly terrible.  Liberators are the proper pick usually due to being cheaper and we need all the points we can get.  That said, vindictors are certainly not a bad choice at all.  It's just that liberators being cheaper and being fairly comparable in overall effectiveness means we free up points for more elite units if we take them.  Shield annihilators aren't bad, but they will melt to mortal wounds.  You are better off going offensive and taking them as Grandhammers so they can likely delete whatever they get in combat with.  

 

Also, yes, the book overall has taken hit after hit and soon literally every good trick, combo, or unit will have taken some form of hit (some of it was needed, some of it wasn't), with no buffs to weak units to compensate for the poor state that most of them are in.  It has really killed the enthusiasm that many of us have had for the tome.  Some are still true believers and more power to them.  For me, I find myself less inclined to play a book that is so new and needed this much changing this fast.  It's poor business to release a book in this state.  It reminds me a lot of the mentality many video game companies  have about releasing an unfinished and untested product and fixing it later.  

This is all assuming that the rumors that Longstrikes and fulminators are getting nerfed, and we are getting no point drops in the winter faq, are true.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Celestantpants

[Squark]

Vindictors vs. Liberators comes down to what you're doing in your list. If you aren't focusing on your battleline at all, Liberators have very similar performance and will save you points. If you do start to focus on your batteline, though, by investing resources like a Lord-Castellant, Reinforcing the unit, etc., Vindictors have much higher returns.

Vanquishers... Yeah, they're awful. Being the only Redeemer unit without any additional survivability improvement and then not being the cheapest was inherently bad, but then their offense even against their ideal target only manages to match that of Sequitors channeling into their maces. Really, really disappointing. And then to rub salt in the wound, their command models are only available in squads of 10, but they have a 1" melee range and 40 mm base, so reinforcing them doesn't improve their offense at all unless they're surrounded.

[CommissarRotke]

1 hour ago, Naem said:

nerfed to death

it's not "to death" but it is disappointing for sure. All of the new models look amazing so focus on that part if you need to. Rules are always subject to change, including not using GW rules if you don't like them.

[Celestantpants]

1 hour ago, CommissarRotke said:

it's not "to death" but it is disappointing for sure. All of the new models look amazing so focus on that part if you need to. Rules are always subject to change, including not using GW rules if you don't like them.

Another thing to consider is GW has committed to doing balance changes more often, so if we do get hosed this time around, hopefully we will be get help on the next balance pass.  I know it's small comfort now, but it's something.

[Naem]

2 hours ago, CommissarRotke said:

it's not "to death" but it is disappointing for sure. All of the new models look amazing so focus on that part if you need to. Rules are always subject to change, including not using GW rules if you don't like them.

This is true of course. But on the other hand I reallly liked the Sequitor models for example and painted 20 of them because they were also pretty strong in the beginning. Now they just stand there on the shelf and I kinda feel I wasted my time. Because it is fun to paint a couple models especially if they are big awesome characters, but painting 20 (or 10) of anything feels more like a chore and I don't feel like putting in that time if I never get to use them. Was really looking forward to painting and playing Vanquishers

Edited December 8, 2021 by Naem

[Freejack02]

20 minutes ago, Naem said:

I really liked the Sequitor models for example and painted 20 of them ... Now they just stand there on the shelf and I kinda feel I wasted my time.

Honestly I feel like this encapsulates why we're getting nerfs (again) this early on in the tome cycle - people are tired of seeing their hard work getting obliterated by Longstrikes and Fulminators immediately. No one wants to bring their big shiny centerpiece models to the board if they know they're just going to be looking pretty from the graveyard for the next 2.5 hours. Any Kragnos, Gordrakk, Alarielle, or Archaon is going to be instantly focused and obliterated; and that's just unfun. You can argue that the tournament environment just has to deal with this (and I agree to some extent), but the problem is just the bad nature of alpha-strikes all around. They tried addressing it with the monster buffs in this edition, but the damage those 2 units can put out immediately is a bit overwhelming. 

I don't think Longstrikes need a points hike - I think something needs to be done about reinforced Longstrikes with TV. Similar case with Fulminators - something needs to be done about 4 of them being able to ruin whatever they touch on the charge. 

They gave us a book full of frankly underwhelming choices, then immediately respond with reactive nerfs when people use the stuff that isn't underwhelming. Honestly I think if TV gets adjusted somehow, we'd be perfectly fine where we're at. 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Freejack02