Nerdkingdan

Do you think I would be safe picking up a few darkling, to get started? I know they may not be optimal build, but there are a few I'm eying to get as an ally for an existing army, but didn't want to get them if they had no chance to be in the new book?

I currently play casual, my list was borked by the endless spell change to cogs, I have to remake it. Annoying, but I was using foot evocators, and they needed the +1 and a reroll to do what paladins did, fun theme list, whatever was time for me to expand any way. For the competitive folks, can stormcast still be competitive is a valid concern.

So I’m confused here. I’ve been playing AOS 3 casual. My theme list I wanted to play had no monsters, who cares I’m casual. Show up play, learn what I could go home, win some lose some. This idea that the game should be altered around casual play sounds more like people who want to win without effort to learn rules or adapt. If you are playing casual your army and units don’t need to be best in slot. Your reach unit not getting buffed shouldn’t matter. Battle pack rules are not a long read, casual should mean you are not optimising, you don’t need to change your list, I’m not. what am I missing here?

I was nervous about this, and had been thinking about negative implications, but seeing the actual rules that we have so far I'm a bit more optimistic. Withholding final judgment.

I am trying to understand what abilities count as being auras, as in effect anything coming in range and stop working if you leave the range, verse pulses that affect a unit in range when cast or used and remain on the unit if it leaves the area. The book simply says treat them like abilities, which is worded weird but seems to imply they are all auras, however it is not clear as some must be pulses. For example Tauralon’s Comet Trail triggers when it moves, applies a +1 to hit, does this only apply to units that stay within 3 or does it move with the Tauralon as it piles in, or a new unit moves in, or is lost due to casualties. Other examples are the namarti thrall master, the spell on Astreia solbright, the knight incanters spell. Spells like Chocking mist in lore of the swamp is another prime example. I think a spell like thunderclap on the Lord Arcanum where you pick a unit to apply a de buff is a clear pulse, but again there doesn’t seem to be a wording difference. Further confusing things are spells like thundershock, that work on units with a dice roll. How is this being handled at events? I think from the rules most are likely auras, but Thundershock for example, because of the roll is not.

I play a lot of sequitors, the advantage of them is the access to sacrosanct buffs, evocators can buff them, solbright can buff them if hammers. Damage to point without focusing on the sacrosanct you should be running vindictors. Ultimately they are not the best choice at current points for this list. If you are set on them you need to look into storm keep, I find you are better with that when spamming them, the extra ward save near objectives, and the count as more models is more useful. 10 man units with empower for example while not great do ok, as a screen to evocators on foot, who will come in after softened by the 10 man, this was all casual play, it’s not optimal. But it has worked for me going toe to toe with gargants. That is my experience from playing them, if it helps.

Without the allegiance abilities, we can’t know if this card is good or bad. For example easy access to +1 to hit…. Yes the card alone is bad, but I’m still optimistic.

Can you take 4 bloodthirsty shiver? I thought you needed to buy them in 3s?

I don’t see the value in 3 single shark units, when as battle line you can make a single large unit up to 3. You can easier set up one drop, getting more attacks first outside of high tide, and you can use command abilities without a hero nearby, also the champions +1 to hit. If you need the singles to get to 3 battle line, sure, but when possible grouping them up seems more efficient.

I have tried fielding 12, while not as good as raptors, they work quite well for non competitive. When wanting to give your friends a break from raptors, but you still want to shoot.

It’s possible eels are dead…. The issue is when the first book came out eels were fastest, most damage and most survivable point for point and it wasn’t close. We also had no shooting, so eels were the best in slot for everything we could do. They had to lose that. Now the question is do eels still have a role? I’ll have to sit down and do the math and play test it, but all the war scrolls look solid the question is the points…. Eels look over costed, however they may still have a role. Spam likely won’t turn out. People often think any nerf means unplayable, too early to say in my opinion.

What happen to Ionrach?

To move things along, until the new book, given our current rules, what lists should we look at? My initial thoughts were to look at a shark list without turtles, or a reaver list with the turtles. I’m also wondering how 30 blocks of thralls with Morph might work, it always looked like it was just short of possible to do, extra reach might push it there.

Ok, so 10 wounds losing access to turtle save vrs keeping 8 wounds and getting the +1 save is not by definition worse. First, if you're getting hit by mortal wounds, the 10 wound version is better, the saves don't help. If you're not getting the turtle save, again the shark with 10 wounds is more survivable, if the turtle save is reworded in the new book, again the 10 wound shark is more survivable. So in more situations than not the new shark is more survivable and thus justifies a point increase, they were already very powerful, and likely some of the point increase was coming without the increase to wounds. So in the situations its worse, how much worse is it? -1 rend is very common so lets look at the math and see how much we lost on the turtle buff. 8 wound shark getting hit by -1 rend, and getting the bonus save from the turtle, you will die to 16 attacks that allow you to save against. 10 wound shark getting hit by -1 rend and not getting the bonus save from the turtle will die to roughly 15 attacks. So one less attack from 1 rend while getting the turtle buff is simply not that big. We have not seen the book, so judging this is hard, but our faction currently has a Mortal wound problem, this helps, increasing our total wounds before losing damage output is something we need. We will see, but its not convincing to read arguments that "sharks are objectively worse" because they may lose access to the turtle save while also gaining damage out put and becoming more survivable to mortal wounds and while not benefiting from a specific buff.

Stronger unleash hell threat.

So as someone who played only deepkin in AOS 2, I recently picked up stormcast, I am very happy with what we know so far. I think when new stuff is released, and old stuff revised, the people who are negative are quick to rush to the forums. While those who are generally positive don’t. For example when deepkin was first released people rushed to the forums to complain how their battle line was no where near as good as the overpowered thralls. I remember one review claiming thralls were better than other armies elites, and how bad that was. 2 months later thralls are garbage…. Now that deepkin is getting the revision people will be negative about it. I for one can’t wait to see more, and agree with you on your initial review.

Without spending a command point we have units that could buff namarti with +3 to bravery, +1 to hit, +1 to wound, +1 to Save, +1 to bravery and reroll 1s, +3 to charge and another +1 to bravery. Another buff to namarti….. won’t make us use them. The problem has always been the warscroll. I'm very pessimistic about the new book, considering the solution looks like another buff unit. I doubt our tides, forgotten nightmares, midnight cloak, Ishlean, and other similar mechanics stay in their current form. My concern is the book will be a complete redo, which could work out, or be like the sylvaneth one was in AOS2.

Thanks, I'm not doing events yet, and I appreciate your write ups to keep as up to date as possible. I'm currently trying to develop the best casual list I can. Solid but not too good, very hard to pull off with deepkin.

In your shark based lists, what are you using for Grand Strategy. I'm still doing eel spam, and its easy to choose with them all being battleline. Thanks in advance.

This box is garbage. The 2 heroes are lazy design. I could make a cooler looking foot akhelian from my bits box. I had been waiting for endless spells, lost that because it took so long to get to deepkin, they are not doing that anymore. My pocket book is safe, which means poor sales of this will make deepkin getting new stuff even less likely.

One guys opinion, each type of unit has a best in slot. Raptors are best ranged, fulminators are the best hammer, annihilators with grand hammers are the best at dropping from the sky, etc…. But it’s a lot of duplicates really, it isn’t as deep as roster as it looks. Many of the warscrolls are repeats in what they are for but have a flaw, weaker raw stars etc…. Evocators on foot and paladins for example can sort of do what annihilators do but without the charge bonus, are just not really viable in that slot for competitive play. I think it allows you to make a list of varied power level, sort of like a handicap to make the game more challenging. Friend has a weak army or isn’t competitive use evocators on dracoline over fulminators. If your going to play competitive you know what your list is, but if your having fun who cares. I get the flaw in this as in why do the weaker unit? Cause your playing for fun. Point here is, play what you like, knowing you can increase the power level if you need to. Me I’m doing all sacrosanct right now cause I’m not going to events, and I like ‘em.

Suboptimal can be upsetting if your just looking at the rules, and top tables. If you own both and say. “why use my cool paladins?” Cause they are cool? I am very competitive, but right now all of my games are against people who are not, so I bought stormcast for the reason your complaining about them. The really cool ability to make my list weaker while functioning the same with different power levels. Multiple themes to limit myself to allow me to have good games with people at different competitive levels. I’m doing all sacrosanct, right now. After it’s done looking at an all warrior chamber list, cause they are cool, when I get to go back to competitive I can start making optimal choices with tons of practice with the core of the game. Stormcast can be competitive and have a fun game, and still provide me with the fun of list design. It’s not always just about competitive play in a hobby as big as this. GW always seems to apply the blood bowl model to armies and choices, that is to say some are not as good so list building and army selection have meaning. Now with that said what the hell not fixing the ballista? That really is useless.

Counter point, when we knew the dragons were coming and they were not able to meet the original date people also lost their minds. I attribute a lot of this to supply chain issues, and other events we have seen the last couple years now. My small company has had to delay something we had planned for summer 2020 because of the shutdowns we had in my area, and because of supply chain issues now we may have to kick it back summer 2022. If we made a promise or reveal on it it would have been a disaster. Its hard to reliably predict anything these days.

My theory about the lack of road map has always been that it increases our impulse purchasing. If you don’t know what’s coming, and your always worried you will miss a product you can’t budget and you’ll buy more. I think GW’s method of having constant limited releases, and always being sold out of the good stuff is why we all have shelves and shelves of unopened boxes. it works on me even though I see what they are doing.

I'm getting older, I've been in management, my experience tells me most conspiracies are just incompetence that accidentally benefits those in charge... I used to smoke and sit outside with the regular employees and listen to them complain how management was working to get them, then go sit in the management meetings as they obliviously made the same mistakes over and over. I would say hey the employees think your trying to trick them when you keep changing policy, they would say "we are just trying to make it better". Management would then have a new bad idea next week. Usually conspiracy is just incompetence.