CeleFAZE

What do we currently see as the most efficient model to utilize our prayers through? It seems that while our priests themselves are rather underwhelming as far as their scrolls are concerned the battletome prayers look quite effective.

I'm curious, what is it about the dracoline evocators that cause their rating to be as high as they are in your assessment? I'd like to focus on a list centered around them, but they still seem somewhat subpar. Is it the speed, high volume of attacks and mortal wound potential?

So, I was really looking to move in a Sacrosanct-oriented direction from Dominion, but I'm completely new to list-building for Stormcast. Out of what we have now, is there a good way to utilize a mostly sancro list, or is it going to be kind of an uphill slog? I'm happy to use anything out of the Dominion box in addition, but I love the look of evocators of both varieties, though I just don't see a lot to really make them work on a surface level. Also, would running 2 MSU units of sequitors alongside a unit of 10 vindictors be viable, or am I really just better off running more vindictors?

Any leaks for the sacrosanct chamber?

That's both unsurprising and super annoying for competitive play. Having the scrolls easily at hand was super helpful during tournaments. It's irritating that it'll be paywalled, but I'm hoping the new app will have the general bank of warscrolls the old one did and doesn't require buying the individual tome to unlock them. I don't expect it though.

Makes me wonder if there's some teeth to the rumor of beasts getting souped into S2D.

For Slaanesh our only real use for cogs was giving Synessa the 2nd cast she should've had from the start. As it stands it really hasn't changed for us, but it does reign in problem armies like Tzeentch where the additional spells were a huge force multiplier.

I think it just changes how those units are utilized. Now you want to run a large reinforced unit that acts as bait for charges that allows for strategic counter-charges after the opponent is softened on the way in. Utilizing the hurricanum to offset the penalty also makes them operate similarly to how they did before. It's not perfect, but strategies always change with every new addition to the game.

And this is why I'll never run a Slaanesh list without Sigvald until this gets sorted. Run it in tandem with a frostheart for the -1 to wound and you have a truly nigh unkillable model.

It is really odd that such an iconic unit of the warhammer mythos, the warrior priest, is missing from the official lineup. I suppose Stormcast are meant to effectively replace them on a thematic level in much the way fyreslayers have replaced slayers, but it still seems like a strange choice.

There are some odd oversights in there, particularly some wizards not having a designated number of spells they can cast or unbind.

Both of these individuals are exemplars of the community and superb choices for the moderation team. Excellent decision.

Progress very seldom results from polite and well-behaved discourse. Companies in particular react quickly to PR nightmares, and quiet disapproval generally doesn't give that impression.

There's downsides to that too. If the players are given an illusion of agency over the process GW will generate even more ill will if they stick to their guns with an unpopular ruling. Like with Slaanesh, where they basically condescended to the players by telling us that the points are there to offset summoning, when it's clear that we're still wildly overcosted; especially in the case of slaangors, a scroll they demonstrated they could've updated in the FAQ just like they did with plague monks in the past and horrors just recently.

I'd say when spending depravity a vanilla KoS is the better choice 100% of the time. The soulfeaster may have some corner-case uses in a list, but the lack of command ability really hurts it, and since the d3 depravity ability requires it to be in combat with a hero it's probably too situational to rely on.

New FAQs are up. We only lost our ability to coalition in tzaangors. A shame they didn't give us a new warscroll for slaangors like they did for horrors.

I really would love to have a unit that represents the midpoint between blissbarb and myrmadesh, as I can't imagine they all become seekers in the interim. Some kind of speardancers or revellers with weapon/shield or dual wielding would be great on both a mechanical and a lore level. Considering we've had two duel boxes already I don't have high hopes that we'll see another anytime soon, but I'd love to see a mounted mortal leader option introduced through something like that eventually. Possibly a dual kit with a priest or lord option on the classic snake steed.

I think this is a great demonstration of how hyper-specialized we are, and how uphill it can be if we find our units paired against their least optimal matchups. I also found myself in this position during my last tournament, where I had very little high rend on the board and was facing 5-6 squads of deep-striking annihilators. While they're not the best at the moment, I think keepers may be one of our better choices against 2+ saves, though it's highly dependent on MW spikes. Exalted or seeker chariots may be a good matchup too, but will probably die more quickly on the return swing. I agree that Yndrasta is probably one of our worst targets for a keeper, due to how severely hampered they are on the lowest bracket. Sigvald and Synessa are probably our best counters against her at this point, which is unfortunate as I dislike being tethered to special characters, but we don't really have the luxury of choice at the moment. Something I'm considering as a way to punch through high armor is utilizing curse via a warshrine on the target and Blissbarbs to provide a high volume of attacks that don't have another 6 to-hit trigger. If we really need to assure destruction we can attempt to cast acquiescence of either variety to reroll 1's in addition. However I don't necessarily like how many points that takes, and how reliant on a 50-50 chance it is. It's a shame neither the shardspeaker nor Glutos have the priest keyword, despite having abilities that are pretty clearly prayers. The other problem is that annihilators do the majority of their damage on the turn they land, especially with the hero that allows them to drop 7 away and the other hero that allows a significant bonus to their charge rolls to ensure they make their initial charges. It's a question I'm still puzzling out a good answer to. I've been advised to zone them out, but even with our speed that's a big ask, and we don't have cheap chaff that can easily get into position and be thrown away without losing a significant amount of points. I don't think this situation will improve with the new book, and I find it kinda irksome that we have to build around skew lists that are so oppressive.

I like the idea of 22x blissbarb units. It feels like a good break-even point between efficiency with command abilities vs unweildiness of a large unit. On that note, has anyone calculated the break-even point where it's better to remove your last homonculus as a casualty or another archer? **EDIT** I got bored and did the math. It's better to take the homonculus as a casualty if you're going down to 3 or fewer models in the unit. Generally if you've taken that many casualties the unit is going to be wiped out anyhow, but in case anyone was wondering 2 archers and a champion are statistically better than 1 archer, 1 homonculus, and 1 champion.

You present a compelling argument, and I think I may instead go for one unit of 15, which also will give me some better opportunities to try and rally back when the unit gets diminished, or to try the lifeswarm to keep them topped off. As for things I struggled against, vampire lords on zombie dragons featured in two of my opponents' lists, and were tough nuts to crack both times. Stormcast annihilator spam was also something that presented a major problem, though hopefully that gets toned down a bit with their new book, and beyond that I could've done more to try and zone out their ability to drop where they wanted. Gavriel Sureheart having a 2+ ignoring -2 rend and rerolling ones was a huge pain, and a good argument for more mortal wounding options in my list. I have an opportunity to grab 3 more boxes of blissbarbs soon, so I think I may jump on that and utilize more foot archers, swapping the seekers for slickblades to give me more anti-armor punch. I also feel like acquiescence is a spell I need to make more use of, so I'll try playing around with using an epitome in my starting list to provide some desperately needed rerolls.

Got back from my major, with some insights: 1. Twinsouls are every bit as good as the hype. They crashed into a unit of 3 mini-gargants and wiped them on the charge with rerolling hits and all-out-attack. They died over the next couple turns from the return swings from a mega, but lasted long enough to generate some depravity after they made their points back. I'm realistically considering a list with 2 squads of 10, staggering their rotating buffs and running alongside a lord of pain to provide a potential 100% uptime on their rerolls. 2. Seeker chariots in battleline are okay, but largely seem to get a couple mortal wounds in and die. They're still our cheapest battleline choice, but I would've probably found a unit of myrmadesh to have better resilience and more offensive capability in its place. I could see some interesting side uses for a unit of three to try and get some lucky rallies, but I think we have much better uses for our generally limited CP. 3. Synessa needs cogs or another 2-cast wizard around to really shine. With just an exalted bladebringer and Synessa without cogs, I found my magic easily shut down, or if out of unbind range unreliable at best with pavane. Her shooting however is great, and gave me the ability to cherrytap the last few wounds off of monsters in some key moments to give me extra VP's when it mattered. 4. Sigvald is pretty great, but godseekers may not be the best place for him. Every game it was a question of whether or not he would be able to get into range early enough to do what he's supposed to. Probably best for him to live in lurid haze. 5. The Ghur command ability is amazing for keeping a single keeper in the fight. If not for it I probably would not have won my game against SoB. 6. Blissbarb seekers are really swingy, and probably benefit from running in a reinforced unit of 10 rather than the 2 5's I fielded, as they need to get the full benefit of AoA due to the really unreliable 4+ to hit. 7. The exalted bladebringer is a solid piece, but still dies fairly easily even with the amulet. I may instead relegate mine to the summoning bench to make room for something else in my starting list. 8. The fane being able to summon is a huge boon to us. Proper placement of it is a decisive element to winning games. Overall I didn't do well (1-4), but I learned quite a bit. Unfortunately I only had the time for a single practice game with my list before the event, against an army (Nurgle daemons) that didn't come up in my pairings for the event itself. I'm going to be getting in more games soon, and hope to refine my list into something far more effective for the next one. We are absolutely on the back foot compared to what other armies can do (I played against an annihilator spam list that was pretty oppressive), but we can still win games, and had I not made some critical mistakes in two games I may have been able to swing 3-2. I haven't lost hope that we can still keep up, but it's necessary to be incredibly precise to get the most out of every tool we have.

Speaking of the twins, did anyone else notice that there's a picture of Synessa in the instructions wearing a sleeveless open robe that isn't in the kit? It looks pretty cool, and is shown like an alternate build, but the parts just aren't there to do it.

I think my problem with Belakor is that I like to play to theme quite a bit, and he just kind of breaks that. I love that we have the option for that level of control, but I'd much rather we had an in-faction option for it. In addition there's always the possibility that he could get pointed out of the ally range, and then a fairly expensive model becomes a pretty display piece.

I think BoC are probably due for a new book fairly early in this edition cycle if I had to guess. They suffer largely from holdover themes from WHFB that don't competitively translate to AoS (low armor ambushing forces), and it seems like the developers weren't quite sure how to make that work with the current system. Low save monsters just don't operate well at all, and they are in desperate need of at minimum more "baked in" 4+ saves to keep up. I think 2-wound gors would also be a great change, letting them fill a similar niche to other anvil units. As for Slaanesh, I think we're at the mercy of some unfortunate prejudices on the part of the rules team. I imagine someone got a -stern- talking to after the first book, and there's probably a lot of emotional baggage leftover from that experience throughout the design department. Likely there's also a disconnect between the mathematical theory of the army and how we function on the tabletop, and GW is holding fast to their guns on this without a willingness to entertain other thoughts on the matter. I'm curious to see how things move forward, and I'll continue to play Slaanesh at whatever large events I'm able to attend to hopefully contribute to whatever aggregate data is considered for re-pointing. I'm generally not a top-tables player, but I've done well in my last showing so we'll see how it plays out.

I would probably focus on getting 30-60 daemonettes, 10 seekers, and a keeper of secrets as a starting summoning pool. The effectiveness of throwing massive amounts of bodies on objectives can't be understated (most games I win come down to summoning 30-strong units of daemonettes), and a pocket keeper when you need a monster or a double pile-in to support sigvald or a unit of twinsouls is incredibly useful. The seekers are there to grab further objectives, when you need to get to something outside of the range of your summoning and are in a position where you can wait a turn to do so. Beyond that an epitome isn't a bad choice, as you can summon one in if you're up against an opponent that doesn't have oppressive magic control like seraphon or lumineth, so you can utilize overwhelming acquiescence to throw reroll-1's where you need them most. Also an exalted chariot is not a terrible choice either, but is similar to a keeper in what it brings to the table, so I'd say it's more of an effective optional choice rather than a must-take.