Mark Williams

A more blunt way of putting that is that SCE have to win by tabling their opponents, because they can’t hold objectives. So just kill everything and you’ll be fine.

For the violet - Screamer Pink, washed with Druchii violet. For the White... I'm guessing Ulthuan Grey washed with a very watered down Nulin oil, and then dry brushed with some sort of white.

Yes, it's a good take-all comers list that will solidly bring home a 2/5 wins if you play it really well... As I've said a few pages ago, this is more or less my default "friendly game" list. Yeah. Very similar to above. It does great until it gets hard countered by a better assault army. But I agree it's a good build and a viable direction for someone to go in. I probably shouldn't have mentioned the word "Les Martin" as that's a very specific list. I was meaning more generically any list that is supporting an "unkillable" Star Drake. There's many variations of this, and certainly room for some individuality, but the key pieces to support that drake rarely change, and are pretty static across lists. Eh.... I hope that you are right. I admit that I feel like I've capped out my SCE for a while now, and I feel like I'm doing about as good as I can hope for. Every new book just brings out another thing that I can't deal with, so as time progresses I feel like I'm getting further and further behind. I'd really like a few points shifts in the next GHB, but I'd settle for some adjustments to some of the other major armies I'm having difficulties with too.

@Requizen 3/5 is better than my average 2/5 at every tournament I’ve been to for the past year and a half. I agree with you that the meta has shifted and gotten even more competitive than ever before. My current strategy is that Ive completely given up on melee or starting with anything valuable on the board. I’ve split my army up into useless ****** on the board and anything remotely valuable off the board. I wait until I’m going second then drop and try to do as much damage as I can, and hope for a double turn. I HAVE to table my opponents, because I cannot hold the table or objectives at all. So every game is basically a Hail Mary, hoping for outrageous luck. I’ve said it many times, but I believe SCE is firmly B level army at this point. There’s 2-3 viable combos: Anvilstrike, seq/evo gav bomb, and les martin drake. Everything else is a bit derivative of those lists. I flop back and forth between a variation of the first two, sometimes combined. I can’t find anything stronger. I agree with you it’s very frustrating. I’m going to a very large tournament this weekend. I’ll let you know how it goes. If I win 3 games, I’ll finally break my record.

I used prosecutors for about 6-8 months, but I replaced them eventually after Gavriel became a thing. I used them as deep striking shock troops to take out small soft-targets that weren't well protected, and they were great at that. But they aren't heavy lifters....

You could argue that it's basically already viable. The question about whether or not they could hold their own in a competitive environment might be another issue entirely...

Yes, I think Longstrikes are fine where they are. It's the Anvils Stormhost that is the problem. It effectively doubles their efficiency, and unless EVERYONE plays Anvils, raising their points cost would just make them non-viable for everyone else.

The dark elf sorceress looks very much like a hag queen.

I use a Celestant Prime in every list I make. Here are the various lists that I use: Balanced List #1 Balanced List #2 Gav Bomb Balanced Gav Bomb + Shooting Gav Bomb Silly Hyper Shooting I worry that just showing these lists without explaining how to use them won't accomplish much, but there you go. I've used all of the above lists in tournaments over the past year and a half. Have about a 40% win rate regardless of the list, but the shooting ones seem to do a bit better than the assault, on the whole. As to how to use the Celestant Prime - I never really use him as a long range artillery like I see other people use. I think that's kind of a poor use of him. I generally bring him out turn 2 or 3, and use him to either take out a target that I can't get through their armor (ie. monsters), or to capture or defend objectives. Occasionally, I've brought him out turn 1 in order to grab an objective, but this is very rare, as he's basically a "glass cannon", and if you bring him out too early, your opponent has too much stuff alive, and they'll just counter charge him and remove him. You try to spend the first 2-3 turns removing threats on the board that can deal with him, so that when he comes out, your opponent has nothing left that can kill him quickly. He's not a tank. The best game I ever had with the Prime was that I assaulted a Morathi after taking 4-5 wounds off of her with a meteor and shooting. I used his "change a save" ability to keep him alive, and he basically "tanked" morathi for an entire game, and killed her. The DoK player was rolling really bad, but still an amazing game.

The difference is how many points each army has to sink into making a strategy work, and HOW OFTEN they can make that strategy happen in a single game, I think. The stormcast equivalents have very small armies and must bet their entire game on more or less a single turn or a single, very high costed unit. As someone said above me, there’s no comparison between this and armies that can bop out the same incredible move every turn with a unit that costs half or one third the amount.

I think there are units that can help you deal with that without resorting to hag nar. Morathi is a very good option as are blood sisters. The avatar of khaine would help provide some rend as well. And I’m pretty sure warlocks have a spell that could apply pressure. Mind razor gives you some rend as well.

Apologies for the long post. I'm going to a tournament at the end of May, and lists are due in less than a week. I've narrowed my list choices down to three, but I can't decide which to take, and I was hoping for some advice. I've played all three of these lists, and had good luck with all of them, but of course each of them has flaws and weaknesses. I was hoping the forum could help me decide which would be best to take. List #1 - Very heavy shooting. List #2 - Hybrid shooting and assault List #3 - All out assault Notes: In each list, I have an even number of drops, so there will be a ground force and an "air" force that drops from the sky. For the most part, the weakest units always start on the ground. The weakness of the shooting list has generally been that if I land and fail to clear out an area next to me, I get counter charged and lose pretty fast. Also, I have a tough time moving and capturing objectives, as I need a turn to shoot and then another turn to walk to the objective after shooting.. The hybrid list weakness is that i generally don't have enough punch to take out threats, and the army ends up being a bit milkwarm at everything it does. However, it is the most flexible list, and is the one that I play most often with friends and in casual games. The assault list can be ugly for opponents to face if they don't know what's coming, but if I don't essentially win in a single turn, I've basically immediately lost the game. It can be a shocker for people who have never seen it, but if stuff starts dying it loses power super fast. The game can be over in a heartbeat either for or against me. Any thoughts or advice?

Once in a blue moon I have a choice, and it always shocks the hell out of me. I agree our tome feels rushed and incomplete.

I'd like Blood Stalkers to be battle line as well. Also, I'd like to see Morathi count as a bloodwrack medusa for the purposes of getting snakes battle line. Also, DoK should go first whenever fighting FEC. Come at me @Joseph Mackay

Imo most lists are built around heroes so figure out what kind of general you want to run first then build a list around it.

I was just about to suggest chain lightning.

Seconded. Been playing Gav bomb for about 6-7 months now. It’s very strong, but it gets hard countered by most of the top lists. I’ve “handicapped” myself in the sense that I don’t play anything but the Hammers of Sigmar Stormhost. And because of that I personally can’t build anything stronger. My Gav bomb lists do significantly better on average than any of my other builds, but there are certain matchups in tournaments that I can’t win unless the stars align and I get outrageously lucky. The problem with tournaments is that at a certain point, I’m always going to face those armies. Been playing the tournament scene for about a year and a half now, my win ratio and placement is pretty firmly at about 40%. I always manage to beat someone at the tournaments who did or would have podiumed, so I am at least respected as someone who isn’t an auto win. But apart from that, I’m convinced that my particular army build just simply doesn’t have the chops to win tournaments. This is my current list that I’m using, if interested. Sad thing is even though I think it’s a pretty average list, it’s looked down upon in friendly local games as too competitive. This is my wonky “cheese” list that I take just to mess with people. It’s a one trick pony army design to win in a single turn. It actually does accomplish that if you don’t or can’t guard against it. I don’t get to play this much because it’s a “rude” list.

Allow me to agree to disagree. I think if you “charge” the dragon in a way that you intentionally want to combat it, but use nearby units to circumvent its rules, you’re just exploiting a weird side effect of the rules. Allow me my opinion. I’m fine with yours. I just don’t want you to say it’s unreasonable for someone else to to think the way I do, or that everyone you know agrees with you.

I absolutely think this is an abuse of the rules in order to get around an unfavorable situation. I agree there’s nothing stopping you from doing it, but I think it’s the sort of thing we may literally see a change in the rules at some point to stop people from doing. You’re basically assaulting a model without assaulting it, just so that you can keep them from using their army’s rules against you. You can deny the situation so that you don’t feel any guilt, but to me it’s definitely exploiting a loophole in the way the rules work just to get to attack first. As I said, I agree with you that it’s legal, I just disagree with the the ethical mindset of it.

I’ve played against it. I charged the general with 10 evocators and Gavriel. He managed to kill everything but 2 evocators before I got to attack. You’d have to charge with something like 20 sequitors maybe in order to have enough bodies to weather the attacks and get a decent strike back.

It’s a loophole.

The idea of charging a nearby unit with 1 model and then forming a 3” ring away from the dragon so that you can fight first is pretty cheesy.... perfectly okay with the rules, but damn that’s gonna result in some anger on the table....

I don’t think it is meant for matched play.

Yes I play one almost every game I play for the past year. This happens once every three games or so. He comes out and whiffs all his attacks then dies immediately. I still take him though, and he’s still a good threat on the table.

Yes, I have played several games where the comet more or less single handedly won the game for me. However I also found if I played someone who could shut it down, for some reason I would lose the game. I feel like the comet is one of those items that takes advantage of opponents that can’t defend against it well. So I have a bit of a love hate relationship with it. I like winning but not necessarily by “exploiting” a flaw in someone’s army composition. I lack the words to explain what I mean, but I think in general I just feel a few of the endless spells are too strong and makes the game feel a bit weird.