Stormcast and Orruk Warclans Battletomes - First Impressions

[yukishiro1]

Right, but these things were being worked on at the exact same time. They had to have known that they were both creating the most complex battletome ever by some distance in Lumineth and hacking rules out right left and center from books set to come out six months later. And they also had to know that the result of that would be a tome that's going to stick around for several years of a new edition that is wildly out of step with the apparent change in direction for that edition. That's what makes it so weird. It's always been a big puzzle to me how little overarching vision there seems to be in GW's games. 

Edited September 15, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Bosskelot]

37 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

GW is so schizophrenic. We just had Lumineth Part II which is like fifty bajillion layered rules on top of datasheets that have forty bajillion rules each too. And then we get 3rd edition tomes where everything has had the hatchet taken to the rules they used to have. I'm not actually opposed to the latter necessarily, but why or why do they do these weird 180 degree spins over and over? 

I mean this was happening in 2.0 too. Just compare the Lumineth books to DoK, HoS and SBGL. 

[yukishiro1]

For sure. That's kinda my point, though. It's absolutely not anything new, but this is another example of it. 

[woolf]

1 hour ago, yukishiro1 said:

Compare the dragonriders to old stuff like evocators or the old dracolith stuff and it ain't pretty, and it's hard to see how they could have got internal balance this badly wrong. 

My guess that the books (in particular SCE) is simply too large at this point. They have a pretty small rules team after all and so the task of making this an interesting and balanced book with all these scrolls is just too difficult. Hence in the limited time they have to write the book, they focus on the new stuff, trying to make that as interesting as they can, then they just slide in all the rest, make some light touches/clean ups here an there but are careful not to "break the game" in not having the capacity to properly think through (i.e. err on the cautious side)... Feels a bit similar with the Orruk one where (in particular Bonesplitters) didn't get much attention

[Elephant_fresh]

5 hours ago, woolf said:

My guess that the books (in particular SCE) is simply too large at this point. They have a pretty small rules team after all and so the task of making this an interesting and balanced book with all these scrolls is just too difficult. Hence in the limited time they have to write the book, they focus on the new stuff, trying to make that as interesting as they can, then they just slide in all the rest, make some light touches/clean ups here an there but are careful not to "break the game" in not having the capacity to properly think through (i.e. err on the cautious side)... Feels a bit similar with the Orruk one where (in particular Bonesplitters) didn't get much attention

76 warscrolls is a tough number to balance for sure, but I think most of us would have been sanguine if perhaps the Knight Zephyros wasn't quite on par with a Lord Imperitant say. It's that the book disregards almost everything except for that which people haven't bought.

I've been waiting since the early days of AOS2.0 for Stormcast to be useable. Now that I need to wait some years yet I genuinely feel scammed. This new battletome is a cynical marketing ploy rather than a good faith product designed to help us get the most from our miniatures. 

[Kodos der Henker]

6 hours ago, woolf said:

My guess that the books (in particular SCE) is simply too large at this point. They have a pretty small rules team after all and so the task of making this an interesting and balanced book with all these scrolls is just too difficult. Hence in the limited time they have to write the book, they focus on the new stuff, trying to make that as interesting as they can, then they just slide in all the rest, make some light touches/clean ups here an there but are careful not to "break the game" in not having the capacity to properly think through (i.e. err on the cautious side)... Feels a bit similar with the Orruk one where (in particular Bonesplitters) didn't get much attention

Still their fault of doing it in the first place

No need to make more Stormcast if they cannot handle it or try to get everything into one book

It does not matter what the reason behind it is, not enough time, not enough people or a grand master plan to sell more models, but it was their decision to do it that way, and they knew that the outcome will be

[Neverchosen]

7 minutes ago, Kodos der Henker said:

Still their fault of doing it in the first place

No need to make more Stormcast if they cannot handle it or try to get everything into one book

It does not matter what the reason behind it is, not enough time, not enough people or a grand master plan to sell more models, but it was their decision to do it that way, and they knew that the outcome will be

As much as I agree with the sentiment, I still think the rules writers could have had at least helped the glut of units built from the same boxes such as Dracothian Guard and Paladins. 

[yukishiro1]

Well, to be fair on the rules writers, it isn't their decision to release new models. We know by now that the way GW plans stuff, they come up with models first, rules second, i.e. the decision on what models to release is not made with their rules function in mind. So the rules writers get handed these hot potatoes they have no choice but to work with, whether or not there's any rules niche for them in the army. I do have some sympathy with the fact that most of the Stormcast book ends up feeling same-y, because there's just too many units.

That doesn't explain Bonesplitterz, though. Like 10 units total, and they took the rules hatchet to almost every single scroll as well as to the overall allegiance abilities and the spells, for no apparent reason other than that they're bored with them. That isn't because there's too many units, it's because whoever was tasked with doing it either didn't care or had a brief to make them bad and boring. 

[Chikout]

I'll take the new Stormcast battletome over Lumineth any day. 

I'm kind of tempted to make a vanguard Astral Templars list. It may not have much power but a whole army that can teleport sounds fun. 

[NinthMusketeer]

Lumineth have a TON of intricate rules that really showcase the 'skillful' aspect the army has in fluff and theme. There is a learning curve to these abilities (both playing with and against) but in the end it does a great job creating an army about finesse and tacti-

What's that? Just spam the battleline that does brainless MWs? Oh nevermind then.

[Orbei]

The dragons look aggressively priced to me. How many points do people feel they're fairly worth? I think 20-25 points more each, easily. A pair of them seems quite on par with big monsters in the 300-400 point range to me, if not better than many. I'd happily pay 290ish for the knight and 330ish for a pair of his trainees.

Looking at them compared to my allopex riders is just sad for the fish. 20 points more for an incredible amount of extra power. The dragon has the same attack profile as the shark but always has 4 attacks. The MW ranged attack is very strong. The riders have a better attack profile and get bonuses when charging. 4+ spell ignore, 3+ armor save, an extra wound, count as 5 models for objectives, monster rampages, hero phase movement shenanigans... Wow.

[yukishiro1]

Yeah, and sharks aren't bad by normal standards. The dragons are just a bit dumb right now, and they're a rules-writing no-no in that they pretty much do everything - fly, non-spell ranged MWs, hero phase movement, decent damage, 3+ saves, monsters, etc etc - and units that do everything are notoriously difficult to balance, because the lack of comparative strengths and weaknesses mean they swing very quickly from auto-includes to never-includes. 

I guess you could say they are weak to non-spell MWs, but practically everything in the game is weak to that. And even then, 15 points per wound isn't a bad ratio anyway. 

I've been wrong before, but I suspect people are going to get sick to the back teeth of the dragons, before they get nerfed to the point where nobody takes them competitively. I just don't see much of a happy middle ground with a unit designed the way this unit is designed. Especially when you can take a whole army of them, which is a bold choice with a unit like this. Being able to take a whole army of these (plus probably two cheap backfield objective holders) as a 1-drop that can go first and move 24" with the whole army plus charging T1 strikes me as a nightmare to try to balance - you've got to make that not a winning strategy for obvious reasons, but because they have such a well-rounded profile, to do that, the points have to be jacked up to a level where they can't fight well for their points cost, and then they become a mobile but inefficient tarpit, which is a difficult niche to balance too. 

The fact you can take them individually for 145 is also a weird choice that seems more dictated by the way the kit is made than solid balance. Having a monster that cheap and that durable that can fly basically wherever it wants to be on the table once per battle puts almost every other similar pointed monster completely to shame. 

Edited September 19, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Holy_Diver]

On 9/15/2021 at 7:14 AM, yukishiro1 said:

GW is so schizophrenic. We just had Lumineth Part II which is like fifty bajillion layered rules on top of datasheets that have forty bajillion rules each too. And then we get 3rd edition tomes where everything has had the hatchet taken to the rules they used to have. I'm not actually opposed to the latter necessarily, but why or why do they do these weird 180 degree spins over and over? 

THIS.

I'm disappointed of the command abilities erasing. Why do that, in a edition that allows you to generate more CP than the past? Just to spam redeply and all out defence?! Come on.
It's ok to aim at balance, but I don't want to trade customization for trivialization.

[Holy_Diver]

Sorry, double post.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Holy_Diver

[AaronWilson]

The stand out things for the book are the new fellas on dragons, 100%. 

[Scurvydog]

4 hours ago, AaronWilson said:

The stand out things for the book are the new fellas on dragons, 100%. 

Well they are a standout, mostly because of decent point cost and the once per game hero phase movement, that is a big standout.

I actually think the new battletomes are overall in a pretty good place, if all other tomes matched that place at least. There are without a doubt strong units in both the stormcast and orruk books, plenty of damage going around, especially the orruks got some very point efficient damage output, while the Stormcast get this damage in more expensive and elite packages. 

Sludgerakers are great monsters for around 300 points, with 14 wounds, good damage output and a massive force multiplier aura, so bringing more than 1 is entirely viable and probably a good idea in many cases if going for pure Kruleboyz. Ironjawz are still good, lost a few tools, but Megabosses got even more important and issuing commands to 3 units at once is a big deal, they will be fast and very very hard hitting, but besides the main MK they will be vulnerable.

The issue appears mostly in competitive games, the usual suspects shut down so many things and a lot of cool list variations are just left out of tournament top tables, as they simply can't deal with almost unreasonable elements. Of course this is stuff like Gotrek (Can solo your army), Morathi, Archaon, MW spamming archers (Sentinels, snakes being most common), magic dominance (Teclis, Nagash, Slann's to some extent). These units/rules force a lot of choices in the meta, and gatekeeps what can be well performing, as they are so oppressive.

My point is then, that we define what is a "competitively viable" battletome next to what is perhaps inherently broken pieces of the puzzle, the overperforming outliers, which of course becomes the norm for any tournament player. This skews my own perception as well, as event after event you just see the same stuff over and over, and the pool of available armies and warscrolls you can choose from, which has any chance to deal with these threats, is rather small. We see this for new battletomes every time, if they do not have the tools to deal with the broken stuff, they are deemed bad, if they do have the tools, that means the book might actually be broken as well, so while it can be considered competitively "good", it is not good for the game.

As long as GW refuses to have any kind of overall supervision on the tomes to ensure they are designed in relation to each other, we will always end up with books that seem to be designed for entirely different games. As mentioned the Lumineth 2.0 is rather recent, but is about as far away from the 2 new AoS 3.0 books as possible. It is still too early to tell how the next books might look, it might not even look the same at all, as we saw with 2.0. 

Good news for these more simple new books is, that a lot of balance can be changed later if needed with points rather than extensive FAQs, as most things are rather straight forward. This is far more problematic with books with layers on top of layers of synergy. Personally I like this more simplistic format, but only if it is the sign of things to come. If the next books are suddenly bloated with command abilities and allegiance abilities with multiple synergy layers, then we will end up with the same situation as 2.0, where the 2 first books ended up incredibly weak compared to later additions. It would also make it easier for new players, as I can see it is very daunting for many to even begin remembering what each faction can do, when most of the power lies in allegiance abilities rather than warscrolls.

[PJetski]

I think this is the best battletome Stormcast have ever received, despite the unfortunate changes to some of my favourites (RIP Heraldor & Azyros)

If you've got 4.5 hours to kill you can hear our thoughts about it on our new podcast The Stormkeep

In more general terms I think cutting down the complexity this much is a mixed bag. It's much better for new players getting into the game - no doubt about that. If they keep every book at this power level then the game will be more fun to play, even at the competitive level. By the end of 2nd edition it had become a chore to set up armies and only play a turn or two before you know who is going to win. Reigning in allegiance abilities is good way to prevent power from getting too far out of control compared to what is included in the warscrolls.

My main concern is that they will do their usual insane power creep over the next 24 months. Stormcast & Orruks will be left with fewer ways to build their armies and some half-baked warscrolls compared to newer battletomes where the developers have been more creative and taken more risks. I've heard some rumours that there was some personnel shuffle in the game design team and that they will be more consistent in writing battletomes moving forward, but I have no way of verifying any of that.

[Gailon]

On 9/20/2021 at 4:49 AM, PJetski said:

I think this is the best battletome Stormcast have ever received, despite the unfortunate changes to some of my favourites (RIP Heraldor & Azyros)

If you've got 4.5 hours to kill you can hear our thoughts about it on our new podcast The Stormkeep

In more general terms I think cutting down the complexity this much is a mixed bag. It's much better for new players getting into the game - no doubt about that. If they keep every book at this power level then the game will be more fun to play, even at the competitive level. By the end of 2nd edition it had become a chore to set up armies and only play a turn or two before you know who is going to win. Reigning in allegiance abilities is good way to prevent power from getting too far out of control compared to what is included in the warscrolls.

My main concern is that they will do their usual insane power creep over the next 24 months. Stormcast & Orruks will be left with fewer ways to build their armies and some half-baked warscrolls compared to newer battletomes where the developers have been more creative and taken more risks. I've heard some rumours that there was some personnel shuffle in the game design team and that they will be more consistent in writing battletomes moving forward, but I have no way of verifying any of that.

Thanks for this completely awesome review. I thought '4.5 hours? that is way too long,' and then I watched the entire thing, really well done. You've certainly given a lot to think about there and I'm now excited to see some of your thoughts on lists. 

I'm glad to see that I wasn't wrong when I read the book and was thinking "wait, are Protectors amazing? They seem amazing . . ." 

I do think there is a 99% chance that they change translocation with the FAQ. That will really hurt the non Annihilator paladins, and I wonder if you Vexillor is a bit more viable in that world as the rerollable charges might be more important. 

 

[yukishiro1]

Anyone playing it that you can move after translocation is kidding themselves. There's just no possible chance that is anything other than bad editing. If they were going to throw out one of the fundamental rules of not only this game but 40k too - that you can't move after teleports - they would have made it very clear that's what they're doing, not done it in this weird, roundabout, unannounced way. It's obviously just a sloppy oversight, the same way that Celestine being technically immune to damage 1 weapons in 40k was an oversight. 

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, yukishiro1 said:

Anyone playing it that you can move after translocation is kidding themselves. There's just no possible chance that is anything other than bad editing. If they were going to throw out one of the fundamental rules of not only this game but 40k too - that you can't move after teleports - they would have made it very clear that's what they're doing, not done it in this weird, roundabout, unannounced way. It's obviously just a sloppy oversight, the same way that Celestine being technically immune to damage 1 weapons in 40k was an oversight. 

I thought the same after the first faq, but then after the second (when the question had been sent after the first), a round of corrections, and a book with the exact same formulation it's becoming a difficult position to maintain.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Marcvs

[Scurvydog]

1 hour ago, yukishiro1 said:

Anyone playing it that you can move after translocation is kidding themselves. There's just no possible chance that is anything other than bad editing. If they were going to throw out one of the fundamental rules of not only this game but 40k too - that you can't move after teleports - they would have made it very clear that's what they're doing, not done it in this weird, roundabout, unannounced way. It's obviously just a sloppy oversight, the same way that Celestine being technically immune to damage 1 weapons in 40k was an oversight. 

Strange thing is before this new tome, they went ahead and changed the old translaction, which prevented movement to how it works now, with no such restrictions. They even revisited the FAQ and did not change it there either. There was no reason to change the old translaction in that FAQ to this unrestricted version, especially just before a new tome, so that is why people give this some credibility. If there had been 0 FAQ changes to this before, then I would for sure expect a change in the first tome FAQ. 

That said I will not be running out and purchase an army based around this mechanic, at least not before the first FAQ hits for the new book.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Scurvydog

[Beliman]

2 hours ago, Marcvs said:

I thought the same after the first faq, but then after the second (when the question had been sent after the first), a round of corrections, and a book with the exact same formulation it's becoming a difficult position to maintain.

But we don't have any SCE/Orruk Warclans FAQs.
All other FAQs were made as a bandaid for old tomes to play with 3.0 rules. We don't even know how to dissembark from an Skyvessel... 

[Marcvs]

2 minutes ago, Beliman said:

But we don't have any SCE/Orruk Warclans FAQs.
All other FAQs were made as a bandaid for old tomes to play with 3.0 rules. We don't even know how to dissembark from an Skyvessel... 

sure,  but the 3.0 FAQ to the old Stormcast tome changed the wording of Translocation only to eliminate the "no movement afterwards" clause.  No other change was made and no FAQ would have been necessary otherwise. This then remained  in the second wave of FAQs and the later corrections (the ward stacking one). I can only assume this was the intent.

Now the very same text of the FAQ has been included in the new Battletome.

Could this be changed in the Battletome FAQ? Absolutely! In the meantime however, I find it hard to push back against an clear "rules as written" reading based on three different iterations of this prayer in the space of a couple of months.

[Beliman]

@Marcvs

Yeah, completely.

Not sure if it's intended or wrong copy&paste or whatever... I'm just saying to wait until a FAQ dedicated to SCE and not a band aid FAQ.

[Marcvs]

2 minutes ago, Beliman said:

@Marcvs

Yeah, completely.

Not sure if it's intended or wrong copy&paste or whatever... I'm just saying to wait until a FAQ dedicated to SCE and not a band aid FAQ.

That's always good advice

As for a possible reason for this to be intentional: the interaction with Redeploy means that, if the opponent has a CP, a charge after translocate+move will only succeed if "movement (capped at 6") + 1d6" is equal or greater than 9", so it's basically 5+ roll for paladins, 4+ for 5" move units, 3+ for the others (since you can't finish your move closer than 3"). Much less certain than a gav bomb (gone but not forgotten).