JaffaBones

Don't get it wrong. The fight first abilities are a thing to stay. All factions will get it or at the very least some of their heros will. Battlelines won't be able to do significant things to heros anymore. I never played warhammer fantasy, but from what I read about, it used to go into a direction like that with the to hit/wnd matrix, which basically made a hero impenetrable from chaff. When everybody has it, it will equal out through "whoever players turn it is, gets to go first" which is already in place. Then all the chaff's turn to try their luck.

By the way, which realmspell gives you teleport again? I can only think of hysh banishment, but that's something else

You army is old-school strong. Fight first and fight double counters it. You did well though, killing two keepers work that disadvantage and wounding the third so fatally, but you have to be a little more crafty nowadays. It's like wrestling up a weight-class ... it's possible, but mistakes will cost you more than him an but you have to be better since you also lose on attrition. You didn't do any, your army did what it was supposed to do. Either screening, delaying the "real" charge of the keepers and shooting it. Which you did well, but maybe can improve if you don't want to Chang anything on your list. Charging the ballista was a nice move also. Preferably Longstrikes are the bane of all monsters in the game, but ballista / Judicator should do it to some degree when screened proper. The thing is, you don't have the option not to engage with your list. You don't have the movement to ignore stuff and and play objective based and don't have many options to abmush stuff. Besides, you movement is little enough that when you don't take the straight forward route, you maybe not getting into combat. You can deepstrike the ballista, but I never liked the standard deviation on ballistas, that's why I shelved them. If I can point out something I look into mostly: You don't have chaff units and will sometimes end up using seqs to hold points I guess. Some points in some maps can get gold by chaff and that's enough. I barley see that Upton for you. If you don't like shooting, try a Diamond Stardrake list. I had success with them against extremely killy lists, since you can very reliably make the Stardrake unkillable (yes, really) which will be your anvil. You still need shooting to some degree until we can somehow have a day in the activation war with either units or abilities to shut it down to a normal"f-this-i-go-first-in-my-turn" But those Stardrake lists are all now 60-120p over and I have to rewrite them.

Few got stuck... Total Commitment has all 4 points 6" from edge now. Better Part of Valour has now 4/6 points in 6" and Scorched Earth swaped territories 90°, meaning now 8 objectives and deeper when you draw closest points which favors deepstriking and redeploying of sorts. Objectives from Shifting Objectives got stretched out. Battle for the Pass deploy zone got change as such, that some faction barely will reach the two middle objectives or can't get tons of models in first turn. Oh and please explain the castigator shooting 18 times

Gristlegore and Slaanesh did become the easiest matchup for me. Please let's put our heads together and address the elephant in the room. How the f do we beat a player that understands positioning and unbind ranges as good as you and has gazillion bodies and movement to do so? I'm looking at you Tzeentch Changehost and Skaven. The Stormcast pointdrops came different than expected for me. Stardrake options are out at the moment. Gavbomb only worked against mediocre players or people who didn't have experience with it, don't mind the raise. Every competitive Stardrake list I took to past tournaments is now over 2000p. I planned on some Paladin heavy army, but the drops here are too few and get shut down by the new meta. The only way I see as of right now, until I come up with something different, is going more Anvilstrike heavy with vanguard support. Many of the new Battleplans have changed in a way, that it will in many cases allow you to flank and occupy an objective ('come in ww/ 6" outside of 7" ') even ones where only Battleline/hero can hold points (people will appreciate 1x5x hunter more). I now that consensus is that harassment does not work well in the actual meta, and it doesn't with all the hordes that have jolly monsters/inane mw output from spells/endless ... but I'm not very sure if that is still true going into the next months. More objectives are now more far away from eachother, giving opportunity of mistakes, in which Aquilor+Hunter or Aquilor+Palladors can snatch a turn (sometimes even without a charge) and disappear. The cost to do so is lower than before and synergyzes well with Anvilstrike. Basically, to feel a relief from the point drops, you're forced to go a little more vanguard. As of right now my Club is even more convinced about how bad Stormcast is, but that makes every podium place on a tournament so much sweeter. I feel like I can outplay everything except skaven/Tzeentch. They just take the whole board and I have no place to teleport/deepstrike/flank. And can't reach fatal priority kills like Lord of change for example. Besides, most of they're important magic has a bigger threatrange than unbind range. So my two auto-unbinds are worth less a little.

I'm currently testing this Anvilstrike Variation: Avil Stormhost Aquilor 180 -General, Soulthief Relictor 100 -Translocation Azyros 100 Incantor 140 -Chain Lightning Spellweaver 100 2x 5x Libs 200 1x 5x Hunter 110 1x 9x Longstrikes 510 2x 3x Aetherwings 100 1x 5x Evocator 220 1x 5x Seqs 130 1x Geminids 60 +50 CP 2000p // 112 Wounds The Aquilor and the CP is last resort teleporting, basically my Vexilor. Instant "yoursafe", no questions asked. I cringe rolling for a conditional teleport. ... that prayer. It feels like it's ever due for me to get translocation off. Luckily teleporting isn't the only win condition of this list, you can get by with good placement more often than not. But careful, you only pay for one Aquilor Teleport off the go. Very rarely you have a unused CP with this list, gotta think that through. All in all, this makes the Longstrikes survive easily. I also like fiddling the idea to swap seqs & geminids for Palladors. Then another option opens to snipe 5-8 Wnd Heros by flanking and charging 7" with Aquilor+Pallador now a mere 360p. The Aquilor CA is basically battlefield wide. You can always run Winds Aetheric beforehand, to catch the palladors in that 48" bubble, then trigger the CA. I struggled against Tzeentch Changehost mass Horror and Skaven. How the F do we play against Skaven?? That faction is so damn annoying. What to even kill? Everything seems disposable, it's just so many. I have a two day tournament coming up and want to take that Aquilor list or some variation below. I'm very undecided: Avil Stormhost Draco Arcanum 220 - General, Pride Leader, Soulthief, Celestial Blades Relictor 100 - Translocation Azyros 100 Incantor 140 - Chain Lightning Spellweaver 100 Heraldor 100 2x 5x Libs 200 1x 5x Seqs 130 1x 9x Longstrikes 510 2x 3x Aetherwings 100 1x 3x Draco Evocator 300 2000p // 107 Wounds Any suggestions or opinion welcome!

They announced the ghb 19 faq for early July with a proposed point update for all new books (skaven, fec, etc)

I did the math, you can't! Even after dropping the Vanguard Aux Chamber 20p and all the Vanguard changes is not enough to fit it into 2k points with minimum requirements. This is plain dumb. Why bother having battalions if they won't even fit into 2k? They even touched all units for it but seemed to never have done the math for the battalion. Where are all this 2500p tournaments happening all our battalions seem to aim at? I am very disappointed. RIP Stardrake Lists. They even made Skinks +10 points, which was my go to ally for bodies (e.g. in Anvilstrike). A weaker version of Anvilstrike is now the only go to as it seems. Last hope will be what they do in the next ghb faq.

I'm not sure if I understand that right, but why do you think it the Vortex does D3 on a 6+ or doesn't do much. Did it get faq'd ? Isn't it D3 on a 4+ up to D3 on a 2+ (+1 to trigger for every Vortex-Model) it does D6 on a 6. If he gets my Anvilstrike heros (which are all 5 Wounds) with that, they are gone until I am able to move or do anything (It triggers when it comes down, it triggers in his movement phase, it triggers when I am about to move away in my movement phase) that's potentially 3x D3 on a 2+ with D6 on a 6. (on every one of my heros). Since I will go second most of the times, this is a huge threat in my opinion. It got me a few times already. The threat-range and bubble that thing has is huge. Do we get the mechanics wrong in our group,? I hope we do, because as you said, D3 on a 6 is nothing to worry about.

Congrats on your victory and thank you for all your insight and write-ups. A decent skaven in my local scene keeps deploying one/two caster out of unbind-range to cast Vortex. I can't auto-deny that since but it will still reach me with ease. Then it triggers untill I get rid of it and get into unbind-range for the next one. Do you have any advice for me to deal with that?

I played a small local tournament yesterday and went 2-1 finishing 2nd overall. Someone took Pictures and uploaded them here, although its mostly close-ups for whatever reason (Link) The List I brought was as follows: Celestant on Stardrake -Staunch / -Storm-Winged / -Ignax Celestant Prime Incantor -Halo Castellant 2x 5x Liberator 1x 5x Judicators 1x 2x Fulminators 1x 5x Evocator -Celestial Blades 1x 10x Skinks Unlike most I tend to prefer high-drop Lists, I always plan on going second. The Castellant with his free Gryph-Hound gives you one more Drop reserve since it counts as a Unit on the table. The Stardrake is unkillable. He just is. Even if he takes a few wounds, with the Staunch/Lantern he heals very fast. The Strom-Winged Mount-Trait does help getting its very low dmg-Output up a little. I used him as an Anvil and to clear out masses, which I think it does well. The Prime itself has his own special rule to stay in reserve so he does not count on the 50:50 Scion rule on top on being versatile. The Libs and Skinks are for grabbing Points and screening the Evocators until they get into combat. I love the skinks. They never get attacked first because they are not perceived as a threat, but this gives them an extra 8" move to get where they need to be. Following the aftermath, I wont play this list again in a Tournament. It is a very fun list, but it lacks a clear win condition, however it can answer most threats and won't get dominated in defeat. It's all about positioning, as always with Stormcast. I feel like I got lucky getting to 2nd place by playing two Mirror-Matches and dominating lesser experienced Stormcast players. I love the Prime, but I have to admit he has no place at competitive Tournaments. The Prime is very fun and let's you react to the dynamics of the game later on as he has a guaranteed charge after coming down and will kill most hero/monsters in his first go. He is also literally a walking Everblaze Comet, but the low wound-count for such an expensive Model is really really annoying. He dies every time something looks at him, he never gets the benefit of cover, since he has 8 wounds. As always positioning was key, but sometimes there is a limit to what you can do to protect him. If he gets dropped to 240ish Points (which I think is more than justified) I would not think twice using him, but this won't happen I think. So he's back on the shelf. I'll play a 2-day Tournament in a month and will tinker my old Anvilstrike to smash all heretics who defy the most badass souls the world has to offer. I'm Also thinking about a "Celestial Beast"-List as I call it, which I will test out next week to see how it feels against Skaven & Gristlegore, since I can't imagine working without an auto-dispell at the current state of the game (and having only 1 unbind is highly questionable these days). It's not final and goes something like this: Celestant on Dracoth -Staunch / -Ignax Arcanum on Dracoline -Pride Leader / -Celestial Blades Aquilor Castellant 2x 5x Liberator 1x 5x Judicators 1x 2x Concussor 1x 3x Dracolines 1x3x Palladors 2x 10x Skinks It's a very mobile List. Every Hero synergizes well with his folks riding the same beast. And I almost feel I will have enough bodies which is a tricky topic for Stormcast (there are just so many badass souls to recruit from I guess... )

This is more in line with my experience. Once the opponent realizes that the Azyros basically gives the Longstrikes a re-roll to hit, it becomes the most prioritized hero in the army to wipe off. How do you deal with that, Mark? I'll play this tournament (https://www.tabletoptournaments.net/t3_tournament_list.php?tid=24547) on Sunday (12 dudes/ 3 games) I'll bring an unorthodox Stardrake list though, which does not have clear win condition, but won't get dominated by anything in my opinion. My win rate in tournaments so far with Stormcast is exactly 80%

Thanks! I've read that already, didn't remember it being you and wanted to know your take on it since you're unbeaten.

@PJetski How do you beat the rats? I only manage to beat Skaven with my Stardrake list. My Longstrike lists gets washed over with bodies, that army doesn't seem to have (real) key units as let's say FEC.

Could you please elaborate your finesse use of the azyros? I am assuming you are using it to give the Raptors RR1s. I tried similar lists but my Azyros dies after one turn of giving the RR1, often times not even able to use his Lightbomb. It's come to a point I'm questioning if I want to spend 100p for 1-2 turns of RR1 max. Looks usually like this for me: I manage to screen my Raptors T1, to get my shooting in the Hero-phase in, then I drop the Azyros end of movement phase inside of 10" to whatever I want to touch with my Longstrikes. This is what I seemingly have trouble with: if it's within 10" it's oftentimes not screened and dies. If I leave it on the board he often doesn't get into 10" of priority targets. If it does (with run) he is alone and dies except against weak opponents.

Not optional unfortunately, you have holes underneath

This is why I think "Storm-Winged" mount trait is a must. You'll get at least 1xD3 (pile-in) and sometimes at least 3x D3 MW off on the target on top of everything else, when sending that gorgeous dragon into combat (movement, charge, pile-in).

I agree, it's 50x more useful than the other traits. I would think it's twisting the rules too, if it wasn't for the fact that it specifically used to be movement phase only and it got buffed up in the latest tome. And I also think you feel that way, because it is not common knowledge. Once it is, it'll be ok. And to be honest ... 560 points is not cheap it's one of the most expensive models in the game, this is included. Another example: I used to wonder why Dracolines are so overcrosted with 300p (specially compared to the Footsies, regardless the movement and what else) until I realised that the points include the "pride-leader -tax" and your essentially are paying for 2+/3+ panthers-of-death.

I am baffled about something. It seems like barley someone noticed how much the mount trait "Storm-Winged" of the Stardrake got buffed up, since I barely see it picked. It used to be D3 in the movement phase and now it's "every time it moves", this includes charge and pile-ins. That's quite a few extra mortal wounds which can add up. Why do people keep picking different traits? Compare it with the Hydroxycloak artefact, which used to be basically the same ability (on 3+ though), they nerfed it to "normal move" in the faq. Storme-Winged is still just move.

Ok thanks. Can you point me to where to find that? My local circle is getting it wrong then.

Thank you for sharing. I used 20seq many times so far, but without a heraldor and the astral templar CT ... Would you say, the heraldor is a must with 20seq? May that's why I struggle so much with it. I don't see them getting around a terrain heavy map to do anything. My Club is very fetishizing quality terrain I must admit (and I tend to complain too much about it) But even just charging the enemy behind a mere cromatic palisade ... with 40mm bases and 1" reach ... I cant get enough into combat. How were your maps at SCGT set up?

Thank you. Are there then any good uses for the one-time Staff of Focus, expect the Incantors basic spell? Even that seems a little wasteful for an artefact slot though.

Hi there, is it possible to bug the comet? I'm thinking Staff of Focus casting it. The additional +1 mw counts till it's dispelled or only once? I'm thinking the latter.

Nice! Tried it. Except, when you spend the command point for the vindicators "Righteous hatred", that does not effect mounts (artefacts and cmd don't, spells do) so you get additional 9, not 18 attacks. Still nice though. I really think, if they only made Vandus cheaper in points or at least gave him a shield, we'd actually see him on the field.