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The role of the Lord Relictor post Translocation nerf


Dogmantra

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I get the feeling that people may start ditching their Lords Relictor now that the one extremely obvious strong use is no longer around. I wanted to start a discussion of ways that people have used the Relictor without doing a pure translocation alpha strike, and ideas to try. The way I see it is that Stormcasts have some decent spells, but relying on them can be a crapshoot because of how few cast bonuses there are in the faction, and how expensive the models that the best ones are attached to are, not to mention that Thundershock and Starfall, despite being nice effects, also have further rolls to see if they do anything making them even more unreliable. Prayers on the other hand have very little counterplay beyond killing the priest and a handful of models that interact with them. With the Relictor, the odds are much better of getting a successful prayer off (50/50 at absolute worst, usually much better than this), and SCE prayers are also fairly decent.

So here's a list of thoughts, ideas, and things I have tried. However I have a fairly limited selection of models and time to play so I haven't had the chance to test everything here in depth. I am hoping that we can together put the Lord Relictor through his paces and find out exactly what he's capable of.

Generic Prayers
One of the nice things about the Relictor is that he has four prayers inbuilt before you even have to pick your enhancement. I can't say that the two generic prayers are something I have used yet. Smite is already very situational but I think it might be occasionally useful against say, Khorne, where you can help snipe a pesky Slaughterpriest with it, with a doubled chance of doing d3 MWs due to the Relictor's +1 to pray. I doubt it will get much use at all, but it's not an option you have to choose to take, so it's worth bearing in mind for those extremely niche cases. Bless on the other hand is I think pretty decent. A 6+ ward on a 3+ roll. The issue is that it is again overshadowed by other ward options such as Gardus or Hammers of Sigmar's stormhost ability, so it's not worth taking him for it if that's what you're building around. But again, it at least means that the Lord Relictor will always have something to try in the Hero Phase, even if it's not hugely impactful or likely to come up often. If you are running multiple Lords Relictor I think it becomes a more common prayer to chant, but I don't know how often you will be running more than one (this is something to test!). For what it's worth, a 6+ ward is a bit less valuable than a +1 to save, with the biggest difference being about 10 percentage points at the most extreme (a 2+ save vs a 3+ with a 6++). But then as the save gets lower, the ward gets comparatively more valuable until it is straight up better at both ends (at the extremes of rend where the +1 isn't enough to give it a save, and where the +1 is overkill as you already have >+1 to the save). Of course, they are better combined. So it's not worth totally dismissing, just not worth taking a Relictor entirely for the ward.

Warscroll Prayers
Healing Storm seems very straightforward. Use it on a nice tough friendly when they're hurt to heal them. Works especially nicely on heroes with a ward. I imagine the best use for this is to combine with a hero with an inbuilt ward, use other prayers by default, but then when they get low, use this + heroic recovery to top them back off. Something like a Stardrake with the Amulet of Destiny would be ideal for this I think.

Lightning Storm is great, and is a useful control tool. -1 to hit is a nice cut to damage potential, but is fairly easy to overcome with All Out Attack. However, in doing so you're forcing your opponent to spend a command point (per phase if the target can shoot as well as fight) and the ability to drop any other commands on that unit that phase. Would it be nicer if the opponent didn't have a choice? Undoubtedly. This is I would say my favourite prayer to be using as a default (of the ones I've had a chance to test). It's better and more reliable than the core damage spells, which isn't saying much but the -1 to hit is the main reason you take it. The major downside is the 12" range which unfortunately firmly puts this into a defensive role. Dropping the LR forwards with Scions just to do a prayer is giving your opponent at least a whole turn to respond before you can even do the prayer -- by the time it comes back to you, do you even want that same prayer anymore?

Stormcast Prayer Scripture
Translocate. The obvious one. Well, unfortunately no movement after teleporting anymore. What other uses are there? Well, I can think of some hypotheticals that I have not yet tested. I would love feedback based on real play from these. The straightforward uses are simply use it like a Scions of the Storm deepstrike but in Stormkeep. And yeah, that seems pretty decent still. Translocate and then one other cheap unit that can teleport or move very quickly is an easy Savage Spearhead. The other use that I can see is still to support alpha strikes, but less as a delivery mechanism and more as a support mechanism. Double up on Lords Relictor, use one to teleport the other close to the enemy to support a charge of say, Fulminators, keeping the Relictor safe until you need them. You could even take Translocate on both Lords and once you've taken out your first target, use the forward priest to teleport the Fulminators over to another important part of the battlefield (or even out of combat if you wanted to risk a long charge). The final use I can see is still using it to facilitate an alpha strike, but a hero-based alpha strike. Use the Luckstone with Translocate to guarantee the 9" charge on a hero the turn you teleport them in. I can't say this seems all that good on paper, since the Celestant Prime is right there and the Relictor is almost half his point cost. But assuming that you want to do it... probably a Stardrake to maximise impact? There aren't really that many non-named heroes that make really strong fighters. Perhaps it has a little use on say, a Knight Questor to pick off a weedy but important hero? But then I think there are better less costly ways of doing that in Stormcasts, and I think using a Lord Relictor to Translocate is a lot of the time just not worth it when you could just run Scions of the Storm. The one real unique benefit it has is the ability to pre-buff the unit before teleporting, and for the unit to use any Hero Phase abilities once it's teleported. I'm definitely interested in using it to ferry a support hero up the board, but time will tell if that's useful. The other combo would be using it + Stormdrake Guard's hero phase movement + charge.

Divine Light. Reroll 1s to hit on an enemy. Given that the vast majority of attacks in the book are on a 3+ to hit or better, this is a great buff that works well in conjunction with all out attack, giving most units almost zero chance to miss any significant portion of attacks. 18" range gives it decent coverage, although it won't facilitate snipes unless you have other tricks up your sleeve. But for dealing defensively with a big enemy, this seems like a very strong option, and certainly the old Knight Azyros was a good pick solely because of this effect (although admittedly his was far wider reaching). A few well-performing lists have been going around lately with Celestial Warbringers as the Stormhost. They mostly rely on few, high value shooting attacks so avoiding the bad luck of a 1 to hit or wound on a single attack is very valuable. This prayer has its limitations but in any list that has few high value attacks it really seems worthwhile taking it, even in conjunction with Celestial Warbringers as you can then use the reroll on a wound roll, further increasing your chance to deal out the damage.

Bless Weapons. 6s to hit for one friendly become 2 hits. This is a nice buff, and I want to say it has a niche for use in shooting, but most shooting units already have a 6s to hit effect or a 1 hit becomes 2 hits effect, meaning the only shooting units that benefit really are Castigators (most of the time), the Ballista, and various heroes. Heroes don't tend to have enough shots for a 6 to be likely, but if you want to gamble this could be huge on something like a Knight Judicator. Shooting needs experimentation, and Celestial Vindicators do the same thing on one unit a turn for melee only. On a 2+ to hit this averages out to about 100% hit rate while rerolling 1s averages to about 97%, but exploding 6s is swingier. The significant upside of Bless Weapons is that you only need to be wholly within 18" of the attacking unit during the Hero Phase, while Divine Light needs you to be within 18" of the target. A safe Lord Relictor is a happy Lord Relictor. I'm interested to see comparisons between the two. My gut tells me that Divine Light will win out just because everyone benefits from it vs one target, and it's a less exclusive effect, but I'd like to hear tales of both!

Universal Prayer Scripture
Heal is probably useless as it duplicates Healing Storm. It's almost certainly not worth taking except in exceptional circumstances. It goes off on a 2 rather than a 3, and it can affect non-Stormcast units. Maybe if you want to use a Lord Relictor to babysit Gotrek to really irritate everyone?

Guidance seems neat, with the +1 to chant it's a 50/50 chance to get an extra CP. But I'm also not convinced it's worth using your prayer pick on. If it was a generic prayer that every priest knows or if it was built into the warscroll I can see myself using it. Do let me know if you have used this one and whether it was worth it. I'd like it to be good, but it really seems lacklustre compared to some of the other options.

Curse is what I think might be a hidden gem. 9" range, AV4 (so 3+ for our friend Lord Relictor), targeting an enemy, 6s to hit that enemy do 1 mortal and attack sequence continues. The 9" range is a shame. It means that you can't combine it with two priests, one translocating the other to drop this on someone to then shoot them to death from safety (since Translocate is more than 9" away). That said, once the Relictor is in range this seems like a great way to help take down big scary monsters that are charging your own objectives. It's just under a 90% chance to go off with a reroll, so it's pretty reliable once you're in range. Any of the cheap shooting options seem decent combined with this. Castigators, Vanguard Hunters, anything with fairly high volume of weak shots would benefit. It won't take down a mega-gargant on its own by any means but it will give a nice boost to chaff you are keeping around to hold points. And there's nothing stopping you from running your Lord Relictor ahead with some Fulminators or such to give them a little extra damage boost, although it would be difficult for him to keep up. I want to try this prayer out quite a lot now. Has anyone used it before? What were your experiences? The short range is a major downside and I can see it relegating this prayer to nice in theory but useless in practice.

 

Conclusion
I have a lot of ideas for tricks with the Lord Relictor and not enough time to try them all! What have you tried already? What are you planning on trying? Is there anything super obvious I've missed? What would the best combos be with these prayers and uses? Questions abound!

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I'd been using translocation without move just so I didn't get accustomed to something that was likely to be taken away. It feels like it still has value, if for no other reason than the battletome is bereft of non-unit specific mobility options. Granted, I believe I've been abnormally lucky with my 9" charges, which skews my perception.

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1 hour ago, Dogmantra said:

There is definitely still some use there. It's just under a 50/50 to get a 9" charge off with a reroll. So not entirely out of the question, but still a gamble.

Problem is, with SCE point cost, you generally have very few hammers so risking losing* 500 pts and your main melee threat on a 50/50 is simply not a good strategy if your aim is to win more games than you lose.

*Losing doesn't mean that they killed (like, protectors are pretty sturdy) but maybe they simply don't achieve what you needed them to achieve, or get tagged, debuffed etc

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I used Relictor a lot in the second edition, when you could not move after Translocation either. I still always took Translocation. I used it in early turns almost always to position archers. Either I teleported them to a good location for shooting, or I teleported them out of harm’s way if the enemy melee was getting too close. In later turns, I usually translocated slow melee units like Liberators or fighty foot heroes forward to take objectives or to menace enemy squishies in the backlines. Also, the Relictor’s warscroll prayers are solid, so I could always get value out of it.

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It will still be used to reliably double tap raptors. You can also teleport SDG, hero phase move+charge.

What it really means is that fulminators and foot paladins drop in value. Which is sad. I think MSU dracoth can still play a role. They have pretty solid, efficient warscrolls.

Our slow foot heavy infantry is out though.

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19 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

There is definitely still some use there. It's just under a 50/50 to get a 9" charge off with a reroll. So not entirely out of the question, but still a gamble.

These kinds of gambles might be acceptable in casual play, but in an event you are throwing away success.

it’s not just failing to charge, but also losing your 500+ point game winning hammer unit to the counter attack, which the rest of your list is set up to support.

You don’t write competitive lists around such awful chance so, competitively at least, anything relying on a 9” charge is a dead option.

Edited by PrimeElectrid
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28 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Does anyone have any thoughts about things other than whether translocation is still useful?

If you're bringing a shooting block, you're taking translocation. Both of the other options look pretty good, but can you find room for two relictors? If nothing is within 18", that divine light relictor isn't doing anything.

The biggest issue is how important that one drop is. You'll have to give up that, if you want multiple relictors. Maybe if more castle type lists work. Stormkeep hallowed knights redeemer lists with Gardus and a solid shooting block could benefit a lot from divine light.

Our stuff is just so expensive that it's pretty hard to find the points.

Curse just seems useless. Outside of a doubleturn, no opponent is gonna let a relictor with curse get within 9". He'll either be killed or be out of range.

Edited by macrake
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31 minutes ago, macrake said:

Curse just seems useless. Outside of a doubleturn, no opponent is gonna let a relictor with curse get within 9". He'll either be killed or be out of range.

So it has a use to deny a 9" radius bubble provided the Relictor has a good screen? Good to know. Seems very useful for point defense.

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I often use my support heroes (in the past that was castellant and heraldor, mostly) to make pile ins awkward for my opponent, especially when faced with way larger units (say rats or horrors). Having a few models around the edges of your opponent's units can significantly decrease a numbers advantage. This isn't specific to a Relictor of course, but it's there. :3

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Chronomatic Cogs can give the crucial +1 charge to improve your odds to ~67% with a reroll, assuming they don't re-deploy. 

Sadly, the only unit I'd risk translocating even with the +1 charge would be protectors, at least they can still take a hit to the face. 

 

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On 10/27/2021 at 3:15 PM, Evantas said:

Chronomatic Cogs can give the crucial +1 charge to improve your odds to ~67% with a reroll, assuming they don't re-deploy. 

Sadly, the only unit I'd risk translocating even with the +1 charge would be protectors, at least they can still take a hit to the face. 

 

Your opponent can't redeploy away from a translocation as it's over 9" away. Also it's a set up not a "normal move, run or retreat" so they wouldn't be eligible to anyway.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Relictor with translocate and battlemage with wildform for +2 run/charge is a powerful combo, however it is a costly delivery mechanism. Translocate is also really powerful on shooting units, to get them in the right position in the hero phase for thunderbolt volley. 

I do think the points are so tight though, that all these support heroes quickly add up, where it might have been nice simply to have more fighting bodies on the table. Stormcast has some expensive but powerful combat units, and some very expensive support units which often do 1 thing decently. The questions quickly becomes weather to just get more of the good fighting units instead of suddenly having spent several hundred points in "delivery mechanisms".

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