Stormcast shooty list

[Westtk2]

Here is a list I'm struggling with, the ranged damage output is insane but I'm scared it will get overrun by armies with fast movement. Should I cut back on some units from the aetherstrike force to get some bubble wrap or just let those bolts fly?

Allegiance: Order

Leaders
Knight Venator (120)
Knight Azyros (80)

Battleline
10 x Judicators (320)
- Skybolt Bows
- Stormcast Eternals Battleline
10 x Judicators (320)
- Skybolt Bows
- Stormcast Eternals Battleline
5 x Liberators (100)
- Warhammers

Units
6 x Aetherwings (120)
6 x Aetherwings (120)
6 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (360)
6 x Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows (360)

Battalions
Aetherstrike Force (80)

Total: 1980/2000
 

[Heksagon]

It would be much much better to have 4x5 Judicators. Primes with special weapons are beasts.

I'm not convinced about this list anyway, because you will have a bad time with any Destruction army, especially Ironjawz' Ironfist.

It would be better to have some shooty and some tanky units, just to protect shooters and keep enemy units in combat.

Using Relictor with a Bless Weapon is a solid idea too.

[Criti]

You want shooty?

Go Vanguard Chamber:

I am 95% certain I built it correctly (book is at home right now). It shoots an absurd number of shots. 

[Heksagon]

39 minutes ago, Criti said:

You want shooty?

Go Vanguard Chamber:

I am 95% certain I built it correctly (book is at home right now). It shoots an absurd number of shots. 

You need min. 3 winged heroes if you want to use this Chamber.

[Criti]

15 minutes ago, Heksagon said:

You need min. 3 winged heroes if you want to use this Chamber.

Then I didn't remember correctly.  That's on me.

***lowers voice to a loud whisper*** Psst... glue wings on the Aquilor...

[Veillotron]

I had done a 'back-of-the-envelope" analysis of the Average Damage Output (“ADO”) of the Stormcast long range units to see which ones would offer me the best return on investment. I thought it might be useful to share re this thread...

Stating the obvious, this is a purely mathematical, probability-based exercise focusing on the Missile Weapons potential damage output, and excludes many other factors such as Wounds/points, Melee damage output and other abilities (for example, the “Warning Cry” for Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows). 

 

Probably evident, but for clarity’s sake, a few points to note:

·         I’ve translated the To Hot and To Wound roll targets into success probability ratios

·         The formula used to calculate the ADO is Attacks X Hit Ratio X Wound Ratio X Armour Ratio X Damage

·         For the Armour Ratio, I am assuming that the target has a 4+ save, therefore saving 50% of wound going through. The rend shown on the table shows the impact in terms of %.

o    For example, a rend of -2 increases the chances of the wound going through by 33.3% (2/6)

o    For mortal wounds, the rend modifier has been set at 50% (resulting in 100% of wounds going through)

·         For each unit I have calculated on separate lines the modifiers (e.g. for Prime, or calculations when Hit roll is a 6), probability-weighting the result to get to the ADO.

At a quick glance, I thought that the choice between the Longstrike Crossbows (“LC”) and the Hurricane Crossbows (“HC”) was either going for range or massive firepower.

I was surprised to see the ADO stats – the HC firepower advantage is much lower than I had expected. It is less than 20% higher than the LC when units aren’t moving; for units having moved, it is actually the LCs who offer better damage potential – 25% higher than the HC!

With a Lord-Aquilor’s command ability, Raptors units can be strategically placed every turn to maximize damage potential. For that reason I initially thought that the long range of the LCs was less important. However, using the Azyrite Hurricane counts as a move, and would therefore greatly reduce the ADO of the HC for the immediate round. With their limited range, there is a greater risk that they could be the target of spells/missile attacks themselves.

With the LCs having in addition better melee stats (with the additional attacks of the bird) and the Warning Cry ability, for me it is a non-brainer between the LCs and the HCs.

 

The Judicators – from a pure long range point of view – are a distant 3^rd option. The total DO by unit with bows is lower than both raptor units at 2.48 – the LCs offer higher firepower with a longer range, and the HCs have much higher DO potential with a slightly closer range. The stats for the Judicators with bows also can vary depending on the result of the Shockbolt Bow – over 50% of its firepower depends on the model scoring a hit and rolling a decent score when calculating the number of wounds to roll for.^rdThe Judicators – from a pure long range point of view – are a distant 3

The Liberators with crossbowsoffer a better damage output, but a) over 50% of the damage comes from the Thunderbolt Crossbow, which is only effective against the larger units and b) the Boltstorm crossbow range of 12” is quite short IMHO.

If the intent is to also engage in melee combat with these units, the Judicators become more interesting. But I’ll be going with LCs in my army.

Personal preference, but the LCs also win by a large margin is using the Rule of Cool (the dude with the bird really stands out).

For the record, I am not suffer from OCD, I just like maths…

 

 

Cheers!

[Lord Aquillor]

21 minutes ago, Veillotron said:

I had done a 'back-of-the-envelope" analysis of the Average Damage Output (“ADO”) of the Stormcast long range units to see which ones would offer me the best return on investment. I thought it might be useful to share re this thread...

Stating the obvious, this is a purely mathematical, probability-based exercise focusing on the Missile Weapons potential damage output, and excludes many other factors such as Wounds/points, Melee damage output and other abilities (for example, the “Warning Cry” for Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows). 

 

Probably evident, but for clarity’s sake, a few points to note:

·         I’ve translated the To Hot and To Wound roll targets into success probability ratios

·         The formula used to calculate the ADO is Attacks X Hit Ratio X Wound Ratio X Armour Ratio X Damage

·         For the Armour Ratio, I am assuming that the target has a 4+ save, therefore saving 50% of wound going through. The rend shown on the table shows the impact in terms of %.

o    For example, a rend of -2 increases the chances of the wound going through by 33.3% (2/6)

o    For mortal wounds, the rend modifier has been set at 50% (resulting in 100% of wounds going through)

·         For each unit I have calculated on separate lines the modifiers (e.g. for Prime, or calculations when Hit roll is a 6), probability-weighting the result to get to the ADO.

At a quick glance, I thought that the choice between the Longstrike Crossbows (“LC”) and the Hurricane Crossbows (“HC”) was either going for range or massive firepower.

I was surprised to see the ADO stats – the HC firepower advantage is much lower than I had expected. It is less than 20% higher than the LC when units aren’t moving; for units having moved, it is actually the LCs who offer better damage potential – 25% higher than the HC!

With a Lord-Aquilor’s command ability, Raptors units can be strategically placed every turn to maximize damage potential. For that reason I initially thought that the long range of the LCs was less important. However, using the Azyrite Hurricane counts as a move, and would therefore greatly reduce the ADO of the HC for the immediate round. With their limited range, there is a greater risk that they could be the target of spells/missile attacks themselves.

With the LCs having in addition better melee stats (with the additional attacks of the bird) and the Warning Cry ability, for me it is a non-brainer between the LCs and the HCs.

 

The Judicators – from a pure long range point of view – are a distant 3^rd option. The total DO by unit with bows is lower than both raptor units at 2.48 – the LCs offer higher firepower with a longer range, and the HCs have much higher DO potential with a slightly closer range. The stats for the Judicators with bows also can vary depending on the result of the Shockbolt Bow – over 50% of its firepower depends on the model scoring a hit and rolling a decent score when calculating the number of wounds to roll for.^rdThe Judicators – from a pure long range point of view – are a distant 3

The Liberators with crossbowsoffer a better damage output, but a) over 50% of the damage comes from the Thunderbolt Crossbow, which is only effective against the larger units and b) the Boltstorm crossbow range of 12” is quite short IMHO.

If the intent is to also engage in melee combat with these units, the Judicators become more interesting. But I’ll be going with LCs in my army.

Personal preference, but the LCs also win by a large margin is using the Rule of Cool (the dude with the bird really stands out).

For the record, I am not suffer from OCD, I just like maths…

 

 

Cheers!

I was working on something similar today in excel.  Thanks for saving me the time and effort.  Plus yours is way more thought out and accurate.  

 

The way I look at it with their movement value of 5" if I recall, you are only givng up 1" by not standing still with the LC Raptors. Their high mobility coupled with Azyrite Hurricane is going to make them rather annoying to deal with for my opponents :).  Unit of 9 pop off and snipe your general turn one?  Sounds good. 

[Heksagon]

26 minutes ago, Veillotron said:

I had done a 'back-of-the-envelope" analysis of the Average Damage Output (“ADO”) of the Stormcast long range units to see which ones would offer me the best return on investment. I thought it might be useful to share re this thread...

Stating the obvious, this is a purely mathematical, probability-based exercise focusing on the Missile Weapons potential damage output, and excludes many other factors such as Wounds/points, Melee damage output and other abilities (for example, the “Warning Cry” for Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows). 

 

Probably evident, but for clarity’s sake, a few points to note:

·         I’ve translated the To Hot and To Wound roll targets into success probability ratios

·         The formula used to calculate the ADO is Attacks X Hit Ratio X Wound Ratio X Armour Ratio X Damage

·         For the Armour Ratio, I am assuming that the target has a 4+ save, therefore saving 50% of wound going through. The rend shown on the table shows the impact in terms of %.

o    For example, a rend of -2 increases the chances of the wound going through by 33.3% (2/6)

o    For mortal wounds, the rend modifier has been set at 50% (resulting in 100% of wounds going through)

·         For each unit I have calculated on separate lines the modifiers (e.g. for Prime, or calculations when Hit roll is a 6), probability-weighting the result to get to the ADO.

At a quick glance, I thought that the choice between the Longstrike Crossbows (“LC”) and the Hurricane Crossbows (“HC”) was either going for range or massive firepower.

I was surprised to see the ADO stats – the HC firepower advantage is much lower than I had expected. It is less than 20% higher than the LC when units aren’t moving; for units having moved, it is actually the LCs who offer better damage potential – 25% higher than the HC!

With a Lord-Aquilor’s command ability, Raptors units can be strategically placed every turn to maximize damage potential. For that reason I initially thought that the long range of the LCs was less important. However, using the Azyrite Hurricane counts as a move, and would therefore greatly reduce the ADO of the HC for the immediate round. With their limited range, there is a greater risk that they could be the target of spells/missile attacks themselves.

With the LCs having in addition better melee stats (with the additional attacks of the bird) and the Warning Cry ability, for me it is a non-brainer between the LCs and the HCs.

 

The Judicators – from a pure long range point of view – are a distant 3^rd option. The total DO by unit with bows is lower than both raptor units at 2.48 – the LCs offer higher firepower with a longer range, and the HCs have much higher DO potential with a slightly closer range. The stats for the Judicators with bows also can vary depending on the result of the Shockbolt Bow – over 50% of its firepower depends on the model scoring a hit and rolling a decent score when calculating the number of wounds to roll for.^rdThe Judicators – from a pure long range point of view – are a distant 3

The Liberators with crossbowsoffer a better damage output, but a) over 50% of the damage comes from the Thunderbolt Crossbow, which is only effective against the larger units and b) the Boltstorm crossbow range of 12” is quite short IMHO.

If the intent is to also engage in melee combat with these units, the Judicators become more interesting. But I’ll be going with LCs in my army.

Personal preference, but the LCs also win by a large margin is using the Rule of Cool (the dude with the bird really stands out).

For the record, I am not suffer from OCD, I just like maths…

 

 

Cheers!

WOW. We need you here, in this thread, seriously. thank you!

I can't wait for your army list!

 

[Veillotron]

Thank you for the kind words.

@Lord Aquillor: good point re movement...

@Heksagon: I have not yet built an army. I bought way more Stormcast models than I probably should have, with the idea of fielding a different army every time. I do not have much playing experience; probably over time I'll develop a favored formation, but I'm not there yet. Having said that, I do like a lot the intellectual challenge of putting together an efficient army and maximizing the return on points invested.

[ledha]

actually, all the meta batallion ( auxiliary, exemplar and harbringer chamber) can't be used anymore at 2000 pts, even with minimum units and the cheapest heroes.

I think it's a bit sad that we can't use the signature move of the stormcast (teleportation, or ambush in the case of the auxiliary chamber) in their full potential without going to the 2500-3000 points army