Mark Williams

My hobby group has a rough set of guidelines for playing casually. 1. No named characters. We talk out any exceptions, but as a general rule, none. 2. Don’t spam your best units. IE. Long strikes, evocators, ballistas, etc 3. Avoid missions with instant win conditions. IE. The game ends on turn 3.

I doubt that it will help due to the fact that it is modifier rather than a base warscroll value. All modifiers are added at the same time, where as the bastilidon creates a situation where you start at 1 and then modify from there.

I love the idea of having a pegasus back in the army. I have one of the old Morathi models and would like to use that again. Looking forward to the next book and hopefully some new models.

Sorry you're have such a bad time with Stormcast. I admit they are in a bad place.

Ha.... do you think these guys are going to get nerfed at some point?

Although I don't want to sound unappreciative, in hindsight the last book was a huge letdown frankly. I spent a long time dreaming about how the next book might make my army play better, but instead we just got some new and (arguably) semi OP units that then quickly got nerfed in the next points update. The entire book needs a bit of an overhaul at this point. The units need new warscrolls, and someone really smart needs to take another look at synergies and hero roles and points values. My biggest beef with SCE as an army right now is: 1. Our base infantry has a difficult time hold and taking objectives, because our army is primarily built around defense rather than offence. In keeping with that theme, we need a rule similar to what space marines have, where if our core troops (redeemer units) are near an objective, they automatically have control of it until they are completely dead. 2. Our troop-based shooting units are far too expensive for what they do. Our base archery units need to be reduced in price, but our rules need to be adjusted to keep Anvilstrike from abusing said discount. 3. We need warscroll bonuses for high numbers. 10 liberators should have their saves improved by +1 (does not stack with other abilities), or something along those lines. It wouldn't take much but just a handful of changes like the above would make the army do a lot better on average. And that is what we need - a base improvement to our army. We don't need wacky force multiplier special rules to try to compensate for our weaknesses. We just need a better base army that helps all players and not just the handful of certain stormhosts who are capitalizing on a couple decent units in the book. A lot of this could be addressed with a GHB 2020 update, without releasing an entirely new book, imo.

Except for a few differences, I feel that we are in agreeance then, and this is all I wanted to say in the first place.

It isn’t just that the counterplay is dull, it’s that it’s extremely rare and is only available to a handful of armies. There’s a lot of armies whose entire book doesn’t really have a workaround to deal with them. And my point is that I feel this is poor game design as it takes the strategy and gameplay out of the game. It makes for bad game experiences. And on top of all of that it’s more or less one of the FEW viable options to build a competitive list. If GW’s eventual plan is to make all armies have unit options to potentially neutralise that sort of threat, then I think it’s fine to leave it in the book. It looks like that may be what they are doing. But as I’ve said, my hope is that the next book moves away from encouraging anvilstrike armies. I’d rather see a more balanced and varied set of options for building competitive SCE lists.

The ability to podium isn’t the point.

Do we know how much he will cost yet?

If I was so wrong, Anvilstrike wouldn't be the best list going for SCE right now in the first place. There's a reason it's doing so well. The entire gameplay for opponents is trying to find a way to approach areas of the board where they won't get shot off in a single turn. You can only do that by either staying out of their range, staying out of their LOS while still grabbing an objective that is often in a central location, having so many bodies or resilience that you can weather their shooting, or killing them. Staying out of their range and staying out of LOS for the entire game is an automatic loss, so your only option is to either have enough bodies/toughness to withstand the damage for a few turns or having something in your list that can take them out reliably and fairly quickly (ie shoot them from out of their range or be able to cross the board and weave through any blockers and assault them and kill them in one turn). Very few armies can do this, and for all other's it's basically just a dull game experience. You put models down, you take models off, pack up and go home. I'm definitely not the only person who understands this. I've talked to way too many people who have expressed the same opinion to be accused of just making it all up.

Deploying outside of range of the raptors and then trying to create a situation where you can approach objectives and remain 24" away for the remainder of the game doesn't work. In affect, not engaging the raptors at their range is planning to just not attempt to win - ie refusing to play. Telling people, "Hey if you don't want to get shot just stay out of their range." is like telling someone, "Hey if you don't want to get wet just don't walk in the rain." It's fine advice until you have to actually go somewhere, then it's just nonsensical.

Hiding is not a counter play. You cannot win by refusing to play. Every mission is an automatic loss if you run away. There are very few armies that can deploy outside of range of the raptors, and then generate a counter play within the span of a single turn. But I will of course admit there are always occasional exceptions. I concede that terrain could theoretically be used as a counter play, except that every tournament that I’ve been to for the past 3 years doesn’t have such mythical terrain, and it’s been preset before the game starts in any case. The best I’ve ever seen is maybe a fairly large tower in the center of the board, but realistically you would need several buildings in a central position on the table for that to be a viable discussion point. In short I don’t really even recognize this as a valid point. As to the remainder of your points, you’re just pointing out examples where anvilstrike doesn’t automatically win, therefore there’s no problem. However, by that logic, any army that doesn’t have basically a 90% win rate can never, ever be criticized. Which imo is clearly a logical fallacy, because it’s a preamble to just shutting any discussion down whatsoever. Anyway, my issue with anvilstrike has nothing to do with it’s win rate, it’s how it plays. It seeks to create “no win” scenarios as efficiently as possible, with virtually no room to let the dice decide. It creates an unfun atmosphere where people walk away with poor experiences and bad impressions of the army. I am not saying that other armies do not also do this, I’m just saying that the existence of other “bad” armies doesn’t magically make it okay. Also, I’m not saying GW agrees with me, as it seems every new army that comes out just ramps up the power creep. But, as I said, I don’t think this sort of design is good for us, and I HOPE that GW will make a better book when we get a new one, instead of doubling down on poor design choices.

I love it. Great work!

While I agree that stormcast is in a bad place, anything that shuts down or counters anvilstrike is a good thing imo. The anvilstrike’s core strategy involves essentially removing any interactive play from opponents and creating an experience where your opponent just systematically removes their units one by one with very little engagement. I sincerely believe GW can’t be happy with that sort of gameplay persisting indefinitely in the game, and remaining a dominant strategy of sce armies. I don’t see anvilstrike living past the next book in its current form personally. I realise this post is going to get downvoted, but I seriously think anvilstrike lists are boring and one note for both you and your opponents, and bad for the game and the army.

I would take her in small narrative games or in campaign games like Path to Glory (1k or less). For competitive Matched play, no probably not.

Haha, sorry, I honestly don't have a clue what unit they are talking about.

From the core rules FAQ: My interpretation of this rule means that Scions of the Storm applies to Stormcast Eternals units only. If Allies could be used to put more SCE units in the sky, that would fall under the blanket of allies "benefitting" from an allegience ability, albeit indirectly, but still. I've never played it any other way. I also interpret the Scions of the Storm wording to basically preface that everything it's talking about applies to Stormcast Eternals units only. So when it refers to units anywhere else in the text, there's an assumed and unwritten "stormcast eternals" adjective before every instance of the word unit. Worded a different way, it would look like this: I believe there's enough precedence between what's written in the core rules and the FAQ to point to the fact that the one use of the "STORMCAST ETERNAL" keyword at the top of the description applies to every mention of the word "unit" that follows. But yes, I'll agree it could have been written more clearly so as to remove any discussion...

It’s the part that clarifies that only stormcast eternals have this rule, and that it doesn’t apply to allies. I’ll look it up in 30-45 mins.

It is only for stormcast units on the table. There IS something in either the wording of the Scions rule, or the allegiance page just before that, that makes it clear, but I don't have my book with me at the moment.

Same strategy. Just try to drop and kill something really big or valuable .

Maybe Astral Templars. Something like this. Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals- Stormhost: Astral TemplarsMortal Realm: GhurLord-Arcanum on Gryph-Charger (220)- General- Command Trait: Dauntless Hunters - Celestial Staves (Artefact): Staff of Focus- Spell: Chain Lightning- Mount Trait: Wind RunnerLord-Ordinator (140)- Artefact: Godbeast Plate 5 x Sequitors (130)- Stormsmite Mauls and Soulshields- 3x Stormsmite Greatmaces5 x Sequitors (130)- Stormsmite Mauls and Soulshields- 3x Stormsmite Greatmaces3 x Castigators (80)Celestar Ballista (110)Hailstorm Battery (120)Extra Command Point (50)Total: 980 / 2000Extra Command Points: 2Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 38 Basic idea is you set up the LA and sequitors close to each other and put the battalion in the sky. 4 drops should give you a decent chance to determine who goes first. If you see a good opportunity to alpha strike your opponent, use the before game move to move your sequitors and LA forward 6". otherwise move them back 6" and give your opponent first turn. Use Chain Lightning with Staff of Focus and try to snipe a pack of units (hero) if you can. The ballista should try to aim for any monsters. If you want to go all in, spend 3 CP before shooting to RR 1s on both the castigators and ballista, and a CP on your ballista to add + 1 to wound against monsters. With good luck you'll overkill just about any monster you should face at 1k. Try to drop at the bottom half of a turn so that you can get a chance for a double turn. Also, use your range. The castigators and ballista have an 18" range, so drop at your max distance. Also, if going extremely competitive, don't forget to roll yourself a triumph if you're less points than your opponent.

Paint 3 castigators and take the battalion in trade for one of the ballista. Put it in the sky. Take 5 sequitors out. Give the LA the Staff of Focus artefact and the LO a melee artefact . Buy an extra CP if you have points left. Otherwise buy the endless spells if you can afford it and take the vortex. Put chain lightning on the LA and combo it with staff of focus 1 turn. Use one of the extra CPs to give castigators rr1s and -2 tend on the drop. GL

That would be interesting to try.