Do I need to have a model on the board?

[Foz]

May have been asked before, so my apologies if that is the case.

We were discussing in our club over the weekend if there was anything stopping a stormcast player  ( or any faction with a similar mechanic) to deploy their whole army in the celestial realm and not bring it down until turn 3+?

Obviously on some missions this would be silly as you'll be too far behind on objectives, but on missions where you have to either control all or its on kill points, if your opponent is slow/rolls poorly for runs you can drop down as near to all of the objectives as you can later in the game and will have made your opponent possibly  spread their force out and denied them any kill points.

Just wanted to check we hadn't missed anything.

[RuneBrush]

It depends entirely upon what battleplan you're playing, but under the main AoS rules there's a section for "Glorious Victory" which states if "...there are no enemy models left on the field of battle." you win a Major Victory.

That said quite a few battleplans say to "ignore the victory conditions in the rules" so this wouldn't apply in those cases.

[Bostian]

This reminds me of the discussion last year about having an army of carrion circle above the battlefield, etc.

Here's my counter question for you to consider: is your opponent going to enjoy 3+ turns of solitary play while you effectively sit on your hands?

[Knight-Errant]

imho you dont need to have models on the field.

"Battalion Set-up: When you are setting up, you can set up all of the units in a warscroll battalion instead of setting up a single unit. Alternatively, you can set up some of the units from a warscroll battalion, and set up any remaining units individually later on, or you can set up all of the units individually."

[Foz]

47 minutes ago, Bostian said:

This reminds me of the discussion last year about having an army of carrion circle above the battlefield, etc.

Here's my counter question for you to consider: is your opponent going to enjoy 3+ turns of solitary play while you effectively sit on your hands?

 It definitely wouldn't be for everyone and is clearly a tournament/competitive tactic.

I played against it at the weekend, not quite to to the extreme I'm possibly suggesting, but I felt it asked a lot of interesting tactical questions of me as an opponent. - Do I stay back so I'm safe when they do eventually drop? - Do I push up the table to try and secure the objectives in case they misplay giving me a major victory? - If I split my forces in a certain way can I make my opponent do the same, perhaps giving me an advantage in the eventual kill point race? etc.

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, Bostian said:

This reminds me of the discussion last year about having an army of carrion circle above the battlefield, etc.

Here's my counter question for you to consider: is your opponent going to enjoy 3+ turns of solitary play while you effectively sit on your hands?

I think I would love the tactical challenge. But like you said that's personal. 

 

1 hour ago, Foz said:

 It definitely wouldn't be for everyone and is clearly a tournament/competitive tactic.

I played against it at the weekend, not quite to to the extreme I'm possibly suggesting, but I felt it asked a lot of interesting tactical questions of me as an opponent. - Do I stay back so I'm safe when they do eventually drop? - Do I push up the table to try and secure the objectives in case they misplay giving me a major victory? - If I split my forces in a certain way can I make my opponent do the same, perhaps giving me an advantage in the eventual kill point race? etc.

But if you (and me) like tactical challenges like that you can always house rule a scenario. It doesn't need to be stormcast but could be anything. Dwarfs or skaven coming up from underground through 3 entry points (maybe scatter them), undead rising up.  

Maybe let the player decide beforehand where he wants to land. To make it more exciting. 

Love the question got the creative juices flowing. 

[tolstedt]

2 hours ago, Bostian said:

This reminds me of the discussion last year about having an army of carrion circle above the battlefield, etc.

Here's my counter question for you to consider: is your opponent going to enjoy 3+ turns of solitary play while you effectively sit on your hands?

I think it would be fun.  3 turns to develop your pieces and try to parry all the possible positions your opponent can teleport into.  The non teleporting player would have the advantage, and trying to be savvy and keep that advantage would be difficult and rewarding.  There's lots of cool possibilities for fun decisions in Sigmar.  I'd be up for trying this one.

[Bostian]

9 hours ago, Foz said:

 It definitely wouldn't be for everyone and is clearly a tournament/competitive tactic.

I played against it at the weekend, not quite to to the extreme I'm possibly suggesting, but I felt it asked a lot of interesting tactical questions of me as an opponent. - Do I stay back so I'm safe when they do eventually drop? - Do I push up the table to try and secure the objectives in case they misplay giving me a major victory? - If I split my forces in a certain way can I make my opponent do the same, perhaps giving me an advantage in the eventual kill point race? etc.

I'm glad you tried it out, especially on the opposing side! Thinking about how something might work out isn't always the same as actually playing it out on the tabletop.

I must admit I would like to try the challenge of spreading out my units so there are no gaps wider than about 9" between any of my models on the table in order to deny a valid placement (my prime opponent often spreads out when I play Death so I can't summon units anywhere but behind my own line). But, then again, that still basically makes it a solitary game!