crkhobbit

If I remember correctly, LVO this year was a few days before the FEC tome released. In other words, before the fights-first meta started. SCE was fine when they didn't get eaten before they could act.

I have not seen these results. I've been looking for good Stormcast results for months. How long ago was it?

In Jaffa's defense, I assume that statement was hyperbole. With the point being that there's always something you can be doing to improve your own play/results, regardless of your faction. All things being equal, the average player should be around 50%. But if you're an average player with a bad faction, that number is going to drift lower than 50%. Especially if you're commonly playing above-average players and/or against bad match-ups.

I think the disconnect here is that JaffaBones is in the context of game win rates. And, at least to me, "competitive" means the potential to win large, competitive events. For my money, game win % is an irrelevant counter to the assertion that they're not competitive if literally no one in the world can win a GT with them. If literally every Stormcast player goes 4-1; but literally every Stormcast player still loses to FEC, or whoever the boogeyman happens to be at that time, it's fair to say that they're not competitive in that context. Because the event win % is zero. And when FEC is so consistently placing in such large, competitive events, it's completely fair to treat them like the competitive boogeyman that they are.

Deleted until I can read your most recent comment.

I guess not. Was the point that one of the most-winning Stormcast players in the world was also the highest ranked Stormcast player at Lord of War 2019 where he placed 29th out of 66 players? Or was it that there are two Stormcast players in the top 15 of ITC; neither having Top3'd a GT? The point, as I read it, is that statistics aren't helpful if you don't have a degree. And that you're bad if you're not winning at least 70% with Stormcast. The first part being irrelevant, and the second part being elitist (and incorrect). My point is that is that the statements he was replying to (even if I don't agree with them) are at least fair statements to make while Stormcast fails to deliver results across the world.

Everybody thinks FEC is overpowered because every large tournament Top-5 has 3 FEC lists. That's not statistics; it's results.

Most of them got price drops, so they might be competitive now. I'd say they need testing to be sure. But definitely playable.

Bows are similar to Castigators for points per damage, but at least they're battle line and they're 24" range. XBows are about 50% better in ppd. And you can still take a shockbolt bow which will do about the same damage output per turn as a 3-man unit of Castigators on average, but with a greater damage potential. I'm not fan of any of those options to be honest. They have their place. But you'd have to take so many to have a critical mass large enough to actually kill something. And at least Judicators are battleline.

Castigators do an average of about 1.1-1.2 damage per turn against sv4+. What are you looking to accomplish by doing 1 point of damage every turn?

Named keeper used the realm spell to teleport up and kill an Incantor. His general (also a keeper), charged and killed 5 Liberators. Third keeper charged and killed 9 Sequitors, fighting first and twice. With his charge roll, he could have gotten to the Evocators - but this was either a mistake on his part, or he didn't want to be in combat with two units in case his fight first roll was a 1. Bottom of 1... Ballistas dropped in and killed his general. A ballista charged a unit of daemonettes to tie them up in his deployment, engaging as few as possible. They did 6 wounds to the ballista, successfully tying them up and preventing them from getting to my objective on their next turn. The full unit of Sequitors charged the named keeper. He fought first and killed 6. They did 14 damage back from the remaining 4 with greatmaces, but he made enough FNP rolls to live with 4 wounds. Evocators charged the keeper in the middle - fight first failed, and the Evos wiped it pretty easily. So he killed an Incantor, 9 Sequitors, and 5 Liberators with the alpha strike. On my turn, he killed 6 more Sequitors, and I killed 2 keepers and got the named one down to 4 wounds. He won the roll to go first round 2. He had 67 depravity points. Summoned two keepers. Game over.

I feel like you're trying to explain something to me that I already know. I did feed as little as possible. I did get into combat. I did kill his stuff. None of that mattered. Evocators killed a keeper. Ballistas killed a keeper. Sequitors almost killed a third. He killed the libs, and 15 Sequitors. Birds would have delayed a turn at best. Replacing the Sequitors with min units of Libs would have meant 5 fewer depravity points. He had 7 left over after summoning 2 keepers; so this literally did not matter.

Fight first is a 4+, but greater demons (ie keepers) get +2 to the roll. Deploy 18" apart. Walk 14". Charge 4". Birds would totally block one of the keepers. Maybe two.

I did kill two heroes. Almost killed a third. Killing things isn't the problem. The problem is getting out-dropped and out-threat ranged by large monsters that fight first. Also part of the problem is they get depravity for attacking anything in our army since everything is multi-wound. So he alphas me, kills a bunch of stuff and gets a ton of depravity. Then, even if I kill at least two keepers (which I did), he can summon both of them back. The net result is that I'm down everything he killed - regardless of whether it's liberators or sequitors or ballistae or longstrikes - and he's down nothing. I can't out-drop him, so he gets to go first. I can't get far enough back on the board to not get alpha-charged without giving up the scenario. All three of his keepers can charge me, and all three can fight first. And he had a CA to fight twice with one of them. And then he summons back whatever I kill. This isn't a list issue. This is a balance issue where a 2.0 army gets to go first, alpha strike, fight first, and summon back anything that dies. Against a faction that feeds them depravity points. The only way I could have won, would be to get the double turn going into round 2, and finish off the third keeper and kill his epitome to leave him with no heroes and cutting off his summoning. I didn't get the double turn. I'm aware of new points, but this game was scheduled before the points became official. I ordered Longstrikes and more liberators when we found out the points, but they were still being assembled.

I really need to get this list proxied up for testing because it works really well in my head. But I don't know if it will actually translate to the tabletop. Gavriel WarriorBrotherhood Knight-Azyros Knight-Vexillor Decimators x10 Retributors x10 Judicatorsx5, x2 Liberatorsx5, x2 Prosecutors Two drops; probably going first. Gavriel goes on the table, everything else in the sky. Run Gav. Drop in Decimators and Retributors within Gav's CA range. Azyros and Vexillor drop in next to them for the re-rolls. Libs drop on to objectives, and Judis shoot something. Gav once or twice as needed. Decimators charge into a horde unit, preferrably. And Retributors into whatever you can get them into. Attack with whichever unit is more important, and rely on Shock and Awe for the other unit. Hopefully you kill enough with the alpha to cripple them. I count 151 wounds. Obviously weak to spells, and very little range component. And actually, if I read Scions and Lightning Strike correctly, you could deploy your battalion first; putting a unit of Liberators on an objective and the rest in the celestial realm using Lightning Strike. Then you can use Scions to put Gavriel in the celestial realm because you'll meet the requirement of having at least one unit on the board for every unit DS'd with Scions.

Incator x2 Arcanum on foot Castellant (would have been heraldor, but our realm feature was no running) Liberators Seq x10, x2 Evocators x10 Ballistae x3, Ordinator

Just played against Slaanesh. Pretty sure it was literally impossible to win that game if my opponent is anything other than a rock. In round 1, he killed 49 wounds worth of models. I killed two keepers, and 10 wounds to the named keeper. Then he summoned back two keepers. 14" move, then charge with fight-first damage 5 and 6 weapons with rend, then get back anything that dies. Yeah ok. Too bad we can't beat anyone on drops.

That all sounds like a trap. Way too many points invested in one unit. I've done really well with them with just a heraldor. Their job is to hit something hard with a long threat range. They're not a defensive unit.

I like the Tauralon idea. Not sure if 15 Liberators is going to be enough or not though. Probably if you're cagey enough.

I would rather have a unit of 10 Evocators than a unit of 20 Sequitors.

The battalion isn't going down. But Prosecutors are getting a small reduction.

laogc seems a little expensive if you're not taking Sequitors. If you drop him down to an Invo, you'd have another 80 points to go with your 60 spare. That's 140 - take something with a teleport and Swords maybe?

You can fit the battalion into 2k if you bring Hurricanes instead of Longstrikes.

Not gonna lie - I was building deso lists before we knew any of the points because of the save and the range ability helping against fights first. But I think they're still not quite there yet.

On offense, they're strictly worse than evocators on dracolines, even without empower. And desos are 4+ to hit instead of 3+, so evos even benefit from +1 attack more.