HammerOfSigmar

Well, I think SCE not going with Hammer of Sigmar(Graviel's buff specifically) have a hard time to charge the 9" after DS into the battlefield. It is reasonable to try the evocators on Dracolines, but maybe a squad of 6 rather 9?

Heraldor can help a unit move an extra d6 distance, while vexillor give may units a chance to reroll. From my point of view, both help you get close to the enemy much faster. Hence it depends on what you need. I dont know why you want to retreat the stardrake if you have buffed it to 2+ reroll 1 save and 4+ ignoring mortal wound. Also, from my point of view, stardrake cannot make much damage in combat except there is a perfect chance to raise enemy's unit continuity problem. I won't expect it to do more damage in combat than the big blob of evocator. Hence I will hope the enemy to concentrate their hits on the stardrake instead of the evocator. For the heraldor's shooting, I won't think anything about that since it is useless if there is not terrain feature near the enemy at all. I have seen tournament with very few and small terrain on the table, so it might be possible that you get no chance to do the shooting all the game.

From my point of view, heraldor and vexillor perform very similar task. Maybe drop heraldor.

That's what I mean, with so many CP. Lord Arcanum can help bring you the effect of cleansing phalanx but you don't actually need to spend points on them. In brief, you get a free cleansing phalanx. Lord Arcanum can let evocator autocast empower, can let sequitor charge both their shield and weapon. Actually, it also frees you from bring two units of evocators and two units of sequitors. You can just bring a big unit of sequitor and a big unit of evocator.

You can use the Lord Acranum on Gryph-Charger, sequitor and evocator. The Lord Acranum's CA can help you gain the effect of cleansing phalax, which worths 120 points, and even more, evocator's empower spell will automatically succeed.

If you are not just a model collector, I have some advice. I bet DOK will be nerfed in Jan's FAQ and it is possible that DOK will become much less competitive as it is now since DOK have too few models and any big nerf will affect the whole race a lot.

I don't think a hero not on the table counts. From what I know, either the unit is dead, in reserve, on the ship or not yet summoned cannot do anything to the game. They are just not part of the game until you set them up on the table.

Celebrate, seraphons. There is a christmas battleforce for seraphons this year.

Actually, ballista doesn't work well with the Anvils Host. One ballista is a unit, they will just consume too much CP. If you want to try Anvils Host, I have some recommendation. If your opponent is Nighthaunt, bring 9 raptor with hurraicane in one unit. They have 81 4+4+ shoots after they stand still. They are expensive(420), but they still outperform everyone else in Stormcast even taking unit points against Nighthaunt. But it perform not so good against the other races. You can also try Anvils host with raptors with longstrike, they are really good at snipping enemy hq from a very far distance(better than ballista outside 18'). For other stormcast shooting units, catigators and judicator perform almost the same after taking unit points into consideration. Prosecutor with javelin, if standing 9' away out from thetarget, actually outperform both catigator and judicator if considering points.

Maybe I am just too sensitive about math models since having a hard time in statistic classes in college in past years, being criticized by professor on the projects about math models a lot. Actually I also think that the way I did is OK already.

For each successful hit roll, the ballista will make actually d6 hits, 3.5 is the average value of d6.

Well, thing will be more complicated when taking unit points into consideration. As shown in the calculation, ordinator actually buff the ballista to make 1.5 times damage as they do when without ordinator, azyros buff the ballista to make 1.166(7/6) times damage as they do when without the azyros. Hence, as the number of ballista increases, the damage difference between ballista with ordinator and with azyros will become bigger. I don't have a good way to represent the relation between the damage and unit points. I can try a little bit here: One ballista without buffing can do 4*1/3*3.5*2/3=3.111(28/9) damage One ballista with ordinator can do 4*1/2*3.5*2/3=4.667(14/3) damage 1.556(14/9) addition damage One ballista with azyros can do 4*(1/3+1/6*1/3)*3.5*2/3=3.63.(98/27) damage 0.5185(14/27) addition damage ordinator 140 points azyros 100 points Now compare addition damage/points with ordinator with azyros one ballista 0.011(1/90) 0.005185(7/1350) two ballista 0.022(2/90) 0.01037(7/675) three ballista 0.033(3/90) 0.01556(7/450) four ballista 0.044(4/90) 0.02074(14/675) In this very simple model, just considering buffing the ballista, ordinator is still more efficient. The best way to do the comparison is to build a complex math model, which is beyond my ability.

Well, Azyros has a bubble of 10' rather than 20' of rerolling 1s. I can show some calculation here: Two ballista with Ordinator: 2*4*1/2*3.5*2/3=9.333 Two ballista with Azyros: 2*4*(1/3+1/6*1/3)*3.5*2/3=7.259 Three ballista with Ordinator: 3*4*1/2*3.5*2/3=14 Three ballista with Azyros: 3*4*(1/3+1/6*1/3)*3.5*2/3=10.888 Hence, if we only consider buffing the ballista, ordinator is better. It's hard to consider the other aspects in maths for me to show your guys.

Could you share your experience of how you use Azyros? It seems to me that it can never live to a second turn once I drop it 10' within the enemy armies so I just usually drop it as close to the enemy as possible and then charge it towards the enemy and release the 8' bomb.

I partially agree with what you say, actually most of what you say, but that battalion does not guarantee you the rerolling. A unit of 3 castigator has only 3 attacks, for my point of value, it is hard to make sure that you actually inflicts a wound on any units. Actually I have a bad experience with the castigator, 3 of them shoot 5 turns(they live to the end) and no damage is dealt.

Your calculation is mostly correct for the your first turn of the battle, but you miss the "look out sir" for nagash, so it is actually 4+ to hit and therefore on average, you cannot kill nagash (4*4*(1/2+1/6*1/2)*3.5*2/3*2/3*5/6=12), even with azyros' d3 mortal wound. The problem here from my perspective is that azyros will only live in the first turn you DS it near the enemy(10') because it will usually be overwhelmed in your rival's turn. Then whether you kill the monster's or not, you lose the reroll 1 for next turn. Hence, I won't bring it just for buffing the ballista and actually it just help you make 2 more wounds on nagash after considering the armor and ignoring wound stuff. Ignore the lines above, I made a mistake about the look out sir rules. For the castigator and hailstorm battery, I don't think it is very worthy, since only one ballista can benefit from it and the chance of castigator inflict a wound on nagash is not really high after considering the look out sir, armor and wound ignoring stuff. But you need to spent 200 points for the battalion and castigator. What don't you just use this 200 points to bring a unit of evocator? They do much more both normal and mortal wounds, which few AOS unit having ability to ignore both.

ballista out of 18' (1a 3+to hit 3+ to wound)average damage without considering the save rolls and other debuffs: without ordinator 2/3*3.5*2/3=14/9=1.55 with ordinator 5/6*3.5*2/3=35/18=1.94 within 18'(4a 5+to hit 3+to wound) average damage without considering the save rolls and other debuff: without oridinator 4*1/3*3.5*2/3=28/9=3.11 with ordinator 4*1/2*3.5*2/3=14/3=4.67