Mark Williams

I'm fine and happy if that's the way the community at large wants to play it. I'm only taking issue with the absolute confidence that it is a clearly written rule with no room for any other interpretation. If people said, "Well it could be this or that because of X and Y, but I think there's enough evidence to say that it works this way instead of that way," I wouldn't say anything. But instead it's, "This way is the only way, and the other way can't possibly be valid." It's the principle of the issue that I'm concerned about, not the outcome. And please understand, the reason for that is that, for whatever reason, I want to play a fair game. I don't like winning because I found some kind of word-smith loophole and got everybody to agree with my interpretation of it. Even if everyone else is fine with it, I don't feel satisfied with the win afterwards. Instead I feel like I may have manipulated the system in order to win, rather than just playing a good game. I'd like a more clear ruling from GW. In a tournament, I'd ask a TO before I used it. If they said yes, then in that small context my conscience would be satisfied.

I'm a programmer by trade. Binary objects in databases often have a third null state until they've been asserted to a value. There's no lapse in logic here. If I saw this issue while I was writing a program, I would talk to the client or customer and get clarification on what they wanted to happen. I wouldn't assume it's one or the other, but in general if I couldn't get an answer I would side with the null option rather than assuming it's one of the binary states. It's a valid interpretation of the rule. I'm conceding your point of view is also a valid conclusion. You're the one who is being close-minded here. I'm sorry that you won't or can't see it, and I'm at my wit's end on how to explain it more clearly to you. Edit: as to the fact that the book has been out so long and this hasn't been addressed. We've seen many issues like this go unresolved for years without getting an FAQ. I'd argue that, for whatever reason, SCE is one of those armies that just doesn't pop up on GW's radar very often. From what little insight I've seen into the environment at their offices, most people play narrative driven armies, and they "magpie" around different armies playing whatever is new or interesting. I also get a sense that they have created a little bit of a bubble community around themselves. So it wouldn't surprise me in the least if there's not an Anvils-raptor heavy army in their group, and that this issue just simply never came up. I also find that sometimes if someone likes the way a rule works, and they suspect it might have a different interpretation, they keep that thought to themselves and are very slow to bring it to anyone's attention. Just a few months back, we saw a battle report where they were putting all of their sky units in the sky before they put any units on the table, and they said in the report that it was a "very strategic feature of the stormcast army". Yet the matched play community as a whole is (as far as I know) completely unanimous that the wording of the rules don't support doing that. My point is that they are not infallible and obviously make mistakes or miss things that have been out for years, just like everyone else. The amount of time this has gone without getting FAQed isn't proof to me that anyone has looked at it or thought about it and said, "nah it's clear, it doesn't need anything." My automatic assumption is just simply that they are busy playing other armies and doing other things, and this issue just simply hasn't come across their attention spans.

Blah, sorry. I'm just a bit frazzled cause this keeps popping up every few weeks. I wish GW would read forums like this to get a sense of what players need answers on. I've sent an e-mail to that FAQ e-mail, but I'm not even sure they would've understood the question.

It’s not hate, it’s just cold logic and pragmatism. Both points of view are perfectly valid interpretations of the rule, and completely RAW. The problem is that the argument is not flawed. It has nothing to do with wanting to hate on them. We need an FAQ.

Right. My concern is two-fold. 1) The previous tome had different wording on the raptors, which clearly wouldn’t have allowed it. I’m worried the change in wording was just a poor gaf from rules writers trying to save space and not realising they were making it too vague. 2) Whenever I see a rule that has two valid interpretations, I prefer to err on the side of my opponents rather than myself. I see this as good sportsmanship. I’ll wait for an FAQ before I use it. I’m not trying to tell others how to play - I only want to be allowed to express what I feel is an equally valid opinion. I think it’s vaguely worded and not clear.

I feel obliged to point out there’s another equally valid interpretation of the wording, and that is that the bonus does not activate until you have the opportunity to make a choice to move. Your interpretation is is an opinion until it’s FAQed, as is mine.

I’ve always counted it as two units, one drop.

Nice work!

I think it’s driven by sales numbers. They have a rough idea of how many people play what. SCE are very popular and they don’t need help or good rules to sell better. The bone army is new and it needs awesome rules to convince people to buy it. Maybe people who are a little frustrated with their own rules, like us!

This is what I do with my gav bomb. I have a unit of crossbow juds and hurricane raptors dropping from the sky. My deployment is as far back and as far away from their army as possible. My first drop is the shooting which I use to kill as many birds as possible. If I get a feeling that I can clear them out and get a charge in as well, I go for it. Otherwise I play a long game and wait for them to feel forced to try to capture objectives. I played against an anvilstrike list this way at last years masters and shut them down completely, only losing on a technicality in the last turn. Unfortunately, playing Stormcast, I still have to play a perfect game and make zero mistakes even when I’m a good general. I find Pjetski’s confidence in the plan a bit annoying because in my area it’s common to just lose a match randomly to bad luck even with the best strategy. Every now and then, the birds will move 2-3 inches only and eels or whatever just over-run you. And the opponent won’t be thinking too hard about it or trying something tricky with their spacing. You’re playing a low model count, finesse army and that brings with it a certain amount of risk that a tiny mistake will see you wiped out occasionally by turn 2. Don’t act like it doesn’t happen, and if it doesn’t for you don’t act like everyone else will have the same experience, otherwise they are somehow “doing it wrong.” Apart from that I agree with everything you’re saying, and Anvils is definitely the best list we have.

I'm semi-friends with a store owner in our local area, and from what he says, Stormcast tend to dominate in the local small, friendly store games. Basically the 500 pts range or so, aimed at people who are playing with starter boxes or just starting out the army with a hero and a couple battle line units. He says a lot of people at the store play stormcast early on and get stomped by them, and they develop a very bad opinion of the army, and feel that the people who play them are mean/bullies, or just trashy players etc... they basically get a bit of anger and bias built up about the army early on, and as they get better and learn to beat them, it's like they "put them in their place" and they are meant to stay there. Apparently, for a lot of people, Stormcast are actually the first "villain" army that they meet in AoS.

For what it's worth, it's been my experience that whenever I win a game at a tournament with Stormcast, there's about a 30-40% chance my opponent will get angry at some point that they lost to "a Stormcast army." It's a fairly common thought that Stormcast match-ups are more or less auto-wins. Whenever I do win against people, they seem genuinely surprised and angry, like I sort of robbed them or something. So... yes not surprised at your experience in the least. Congrats on the win though.

I've played a similar list off and on over the past year. The main issue I've found with all shooting lists is that it is very difficult to reach out and grab (and hold) objectives with it. You're banking on being able to wipe the enemy mostly off the board by turn 3, so that you have enough turns left to capture the objectives and gather enough points up to win the game by turn 5. Additionally, because you aren't fighting twice per round like other melee armies, you are relying on doing all of that damage in a single turn, which can get extremely tricky. The army has a bunch of disadvantages that are difficult to overcome. The Anvil's list works well because you can shoot twice with 1 unit in the same turn, but that doesn't apply to the rest of your shooting units, which means if you get double turned, pretty much everything will get over-run by a fast melee-focused army. I actually have a lot of vested interest in these sorts of shooting armies, and I want them to do well, but based on the last tournament I went to where I took a similar army, I found it to be quite mediocre and to have some really tough "auto-lose" type matches. Beware of armies that can do some sort of area of effect "bomb" type spell (endless spells like everblaze comet or geminids of ulgu). Some of those spells can completely wreck you in a couple of turns. I've also had serious trouble with armies that can summon new units onto the board - seraphon, slaanesh, and sometimes FEC have all given me grief due to the fact that I spend the whole game shooting fodder trying to get them off of objectives only to have them pop back the next turn and keep crowding me into a small corner of the board that I can't seem to get out of. I actually had seraphon i a sigle turn once pretty much zone me completely out of the entire board on turn one with skink spam, and I've seen Slaanesh occasionally do a similar version of that too. I wouldn't give up on the idea, just simply try it a few times and get a feel for the weaknesses and strengths of it. Also, as to the Sylvaneth comment. I actually haven't found Sylvaneth to be much of a problem for this particular brand of shooting, due to the fact that you can drop hurricane raptors from the sky into a good position, regardless of how they set up. With Sylvaneth, if you can knock out the right targets early on, their army gets significantly weaker. The trick is simply to set up multiple lanes of fire so that they can't LOS one unit without exposing themselves to another.

Well you have to keep in mind that those first few months that Gavriel came out there weren't quite the extreme counters that have appeared in the time since. I think Gavriel is arguably as good as it ever was, but that a lot of armies got a lot stronger since them, so they sort of got taken down a peg as far as the meta goes. I agree there may have been a little bit of "element of surprise" as well in those first few months. As for me and my army, my main issue is that Gavriel is the best move I've got, regardless of whether or not my opponent has seen it. It's a solid threat that the opponent must deal with in a specific way. Forcing them to play at least a little bit defensively. If they expose a valuable unit, even by accident, I can punish them very hard for it, and that by itself is a very useful tool. I don't run an anvils-shootcast list, so I've sort of limited/hamstrung myself into playing HoS, so I'll keep using Gavriel until something more useful appears to me.

I can't imagine it will be soon. Even at an optimistic guess, I'd say we are more than a year out, if not two. The current release schedule, as far as I'm aware, goes something like this... - Slaves to Darkness/Everchosen - Bonereapers - Mawtribes - Tzeench - Kharadron Overlords - Seraphon I'm sure the order of that might change, but after that you have to consider that a few of the death armies are in need of new releases, if not an overhaul. And I think DoK will be due for endless spells and a book refresh at some point too. SCE is not really a priority at the moment.

I feel like this has been done to death, but eh.... I like talking about stormcast, so I'll list out some of the big ones in my head. 1. I feel like there's too many heroes with special abilities that are good, but you can't take them all because magic is such an important part of the game now. Lord Castellants and Knight Encantors seem almost like mandatory takes in a lot of builds, and that doesn't leave much room for the other characters which are also really interesting and good too.You also have stuff like the Lord Acquilor or the Lord Arcanums which are needed to unlock certain battle line units. I feel like this "hero bloat" has become a bottleneck of sorts, and it stops me from taking more varied lists because I feel like my hero slots have been semi forced upon me. I realize that non-Stormcast armies might look at this and think I'm just not appreciating the variety that we have, but I seriously feel like this is a problem that needs to be addressed somehow. 2. The hero command abilities in many cases are a bit lame or redundant with the new generic abilities that were added in GHB19. Again, I wouldn't mind seeing these revisited to make them a little bit more relevant again. 3. Liberators are a bit pathetic compared to most other battle line. I'd like to see them hitting on 3s always, and to make their special ability perhaps do something else than +1 hit. 4. We still need massive points adjustments across the line. I won't get into this here. Someone made a decent list a while back just before GHB19 came out that was pretty much spot on. 5. We need some help holding objectives. This is killing us in otherwise tight/close games where we are playing well. I suspect they need to introduce the 40k mechanic that allows troops to maintain hold on objectives even if they are outnumbered. 6. We need battalions that don't suck. 7. Stormhost rules..... too complicated to get into them all but in a nutshell Anvils doesn't need to be the only "obvious choice".

Rub lemon juice all of your bodies so they spit you out. 😂

Yes, I've been pouring over the book since I got it this weekend, and I'm thinking the Hammerhall city makes the most sense to me. I'm interested in theming a list around gryphons, and I think you could splice in a few stormcast units here and there to enhance the theme.

I understand your point of view. My point of view is that the answer to the question is not, “No,” but rather, “I don’t know because it hasn’t happened yet.”

I flip a coin. When it lands, I cover it up before you can see it. I will uncover the coin and show you the answer in the movement phase. In the hero phase, you can shoot further if the coin is heads. With only this information available, what state is the coin in, and based on that, can you shoot further or not?

Haha there’s a lot of lists it doesn’t work against.

From a “math” perspective, a variable can be empty or null before it’s decided. You’re assuming that the default state is no, and that there’s only two valid answers. I see your point, and I don’t want to convince you that you’re wrong, rather that there’s an equally valid different way to look at it.

I realize there isn’t an FAQ on this, but if they ever get around to it, I highly doubt it will work that way, considering the way that it was worded in the previous book, and considering that many similar abilities in other armies don’t work that way either. Even going by “RAW”, I personally think it’s ambiguous. You could also say that the condition of whether or not you moved yet in that phase is neither yes or no, but “unknown” which would therefore mean you can’t get a definitive answer and thus don’t get the bonus.

I’m using a gav bomb list.

It depends on what list he is taking and what list you are taking. Lately, my core strategy is to try to blow a hole in their main witch block as early as possible. I have an "alpha strike" capable army, and if they give me first turn I usually plow straight into their main block of witches with everything I've got. It could be considered a gamble, but if you can knock out their center, it will help tremendously later in the game after their buffs start compounding. It will also put them on the defensive which is not where they like to be.