readercolin

For standing and holding, a pair of drakes is going to count as 10 on objectives. For other good objective holders, you are looking at paying 230 points for 10 "models" with liberators, or 260 points for 10 "models" with Vindictors. Stormkeeps will obviously change this, but I'm just putting this out there to say that point for point, the Stormdrakes aren't actually that bad as objective holders. Taking a look at other factions, if we can expect ~12-15 damage before saves from a pair of stormdrakes, then we can reasonably expect them to run over light screening units (think 100ish point units), but get bogged down against anything more significant. This brings us to the "Kharadron Problem", where you have to take advantage of your speed and mobility to try to bring a lot more of your army down and concentrate your firepower on key targets. For focused fire, this is actually why I would consider running a squad of 6 of them with a Knight-Draconis, because he can let them once per game get off a breath attack, and then another in the shooting phase for a total of 11 mortal wounds on average that turn from that squad. Whether that is worth dropping 855 points on one unit is still very much in question though, unless it is relatively easy to get them all in combat with the 3" coherency rules. All this being said, for an "ideal" army, we should probably be looking to add additional hitting power from something else. Whether that is Vanguard Raptors, Evocators (on foot or on Dracolines), or some Annihilators coming down from the sky, we probably need something to back them up with more hitting power. However, it is VERY relevant that you can take a squad of 4 of these guys and "Tokyo Drift" them down the battlefield, and even with the smallest base size I can see them giving them (90mm oval), that would still be a 29" frontage that they can just bodyblock the board with (4 models with 3.5" size, 3" range between, and then another 3" at the end). Especially if you give them mystic shield and -1 to wound. Achieving battle tactics will probably be key with this army. However, we should be VERY aware that while we are playing in Ghur, we give away 1 point per battle round whenever an opponent slays a Monster. This means that the opponent is going to get an extra victory point if they manage to kill 1 Stormdrake out of a unit. Meanwhile, the various battle tactics that we can perform give bonuses for being performed by monsters either give the bonus by doing it with a single monster, or doing it with several monstrous units, so having a large unit of monsters isn't particularly helping our cause. Going back to my response to point B, the biggest thing that Stormdrakes do better than another unit is just clogging up a massive amount of board space with a very hard to move force. This gets me thinking that what we really want to do is run them in a Stormkeep, with some support from some Vindictors. The Stormdrakes would be able to push forward and keep the opponents off of objectives for a turn or two, and then the vindictors would be counting as 3 models on all objectives starting turn 3. Then you can bring your hammers of choice now that you have the objectives secured. I would look to back them up with a Monster general giving the -1 to wound for all monsters, and a wizard to give the blocking stormdrakes Mystic Shield, and the ability to All Out Defense them for a 2+ ignore rend 1 to block the opponent up for the maximum length of time. This solves the question of how do you synergize, and what the Stormdrakes do the best. A squad of 4 of them is going to be 36 wounds at a 2+ save, which is going to be really tough for some armies to shift. Keep in mind also that once you loose a model or three, you can also retreat and then try to rally them back on the next hero phase (and rallying even a single model back from this unit can be backbreaking for many opponents - and who knows, you might get lucky...). Going from my own experience, I would say that against anyone who isn't spamming mortal wounds, the Stormdrakes are in a pretty decent spot as a unit that will help you score battle tactics, and just clog up the board forever. It is also very possible that they are durable enough that they are going to get nerfed points wise because trying to go through them in a casual game is going to suck for most opponents. However, I don't see an all Stormdrake list doing well competitively (but I'm still going to build one... for reasons), but I think that a squad of 4 of them might see some semi-regular play in many lists. Stormkeep vs Scions of the Storm then really depends upon what your other hammer units are going to be. Nothing is known about the Stormdrakes model yet (aside of course from the pictures), so we don't know what their base size is going to be.

I'm not sure what you are putting in for your mathhammer, but your numbers for the stormdrake guards is straight up off. You are doing about 2 damage more than the guard would actually be doing with swords, but your damage dropoff is enough to make it clear that you are using those as your rend 1 weapons. Additionally, I'm not sure what you are using for the evokitties weapon profile, but you are clearly using at least 1 staff attack, but again your numbers are off compared to what they should be showing. And if you are wondering if the tool that you are using is calculating differently than mine - I'm also using AoS Statshammer, which means that any differences between our results should solely be due to user input, not due to having different calculations. Next up, you can't really ignore the mortals from the kitties. They are automatically going to deal an average of 4.5 mortals at the end of their attack, which drastically swings the damage in their favor across that entire chart. If we compare this to potential mortals from the Stormdrake guard, all we have is Stomp (and shooting, which happens only on your turns, meaning it goes off half as much), which is only going to be relevant against other non-monster units, and you get 1 chance at a 2+ for it to go off, unlike the kitties giving you 9 chances at a 4+. Stomp also gives you a single chance to do it per charge phase, which is a bit different than something that can go off from any number of units that you have. Finally, I'm comparing against a 6+ because I don't feel like posting a full chart when looking at a range of 6 different examples. Someone is always going to complain about the comparison (as seen above). However, we can't exactly say that your charts are useful, because they don't take into account what the exact affect of save stacking is. After all, if you are attacking something with a 4+ save, when you start save stacking the 4+ save in the chart above doesn't actually tell you what the actual damage is, because it is assuming that the rend is actually making a difference. Meanwhile, your opponent could have save stacked that enough that they are still rocking their 3+ even against your rend 2, and that straight up isn't going to show in that chart, but calling your unit ethereal also isn't going to help if they have enough bonuses to ignore rend 1 but not rend 2 and you have attacks that are a mixture of rends. Therefore, it is more information to tell someone "expect this much damage before saves".

The problem is when you look at the math. A squad of 2 SDG do an average of 12.89 damage per combat round. You are paying 285 points for this. Yes, they are monsters and can do a monstrous rampage, but remember that only a single monster can stomp (and then only on non-monsters). Then, you can have a monster roar, and a SINGLE stormdrake guard model can benefit from titanic dual. This is fine if you have a single unit of stormdrake guard and no other monsters, but for people here who are looking to run a bunch, that doesn't really hold up well. Now, lets go ahead and compare this to other units, both in Stormcast and in other factions. Evocators on Dracolines cost 280 points, and are rocking a 4+ save, and they also only have 15 wounds (compared to the guard's 18). However, offensively they are head and shoulders better. Without any buffs at all, a squad of kitties is going to push out an average of 18.28 damage to a 6+ save - about 50% more than the guard. Additionally, they are able to buff themselves with a +1 to wound (with empower), and just having a Lord-Arcanum on Dracoline within 18" is going to give their mounts +1 attacks. Just the +1 to wound is going to bump them up to 21.72 damage on average, but if we add the Lord-Arcanum floating around nearby we can bump that up to an average of 25 damage - aka, almost double the damage of the Stormdrakes. Also, they do this damage whether they charge or not, but if they are trying to charge, they do get re-rolls to their charge. Annihilators with grandhammers come in at 240 points. However, they get to rock a 3+ save, do mortal wounds when they come down from the sky, do mortal wounds on the charge, and if we ignore all the mortal wounds will still put out an average of 16.67 damage in melee to a 5+ save. Additionally, they get to re-roll charges the turn they come down from the sky, with the Lord-Imperitant allowing them to do so from 7" instead of 9" if you want. Sequitors are generic battleline that are rocking a 4+ save - but they can also rock a 5+ ward in melee. A single squad of sequitors will pump out an average of 8 wounds per combat round, and do so for only 145 points. You can get 2 squads of sequitors for almost the same price as a SDG (290 vs 285), and will do 33% more damage if you get them into combat. Additionally, if you are running a Stormkeep, those sequitors can count as 15 on objectives compared to the 10 of the stormdrake guard. Concussors. These guys don't have anything special about charging, they just do whatever they do no matter what. But a pair of concussors is going to clock in at 220 points and put out an average of 10.67 damage to a 5+ save, which point for point is going to be more than what the SDG are doing. Now, if we move away from what Stormcast can do, we can diversify what we are looking at. First up - Blood Knights. For only 195 points, a squad of blood knights are rocking 15 wounds on a 3+ save, can put out 10.86 damage on average, or 17.96 on the charge. They also have a way to deal mortal wounds to a unit by running over them (about the equivalent of a stomp). Next up, Morrsarr Guard. A unit of guard costs 170 points, has a total of 12 wounds and a 4+ save, and will deal an average of 8.44 damage when in combat, or 11.56 when they charge (and note, this is without their biovoltaic blast or any other buffs). This puts the Stormdrake Guard on a similar footing to eels without buffs when comparing equal points. Basically, if we look at other comparable hammers, Stormdrake Guard stand out because they can make a move in the hero phase, and they are 18 wounds on a 3+ save. Points for points, they stand out for being mobile anvils. But they are not particularly killy when we compare them to other options both within Stormcast and other units outside of them. The hope is that they are durable enough and mobile enough that they are worth their points, and it could be that their durability is what sees them through. But I wouldn't go out calling them damage monsters.

A small note to keep in mind. 1x stormdrake isn't battleline. You can run 1 stormdrake in your list, but you have to run them in a unit of 2/4/6 to count as battleline. Additionally, you can only run 1x stormdrake per Knight-Draconis you are running. That being said, if you are planning on going all-out on Stormdrakes, there are 2 lists that I've been looking at that *should* work (points wise). List 1 - The big dragons: Lord-Celestant on Stardrake (general) - 500pts Krondys or Karazai - 600pts 2x Stormdrake - 285pts 2x Stormdrake - 285pts 2x Stormdrake - 285pts 1955 points Note, this list you can run with the "Battle Regiment" (the Stormdrakes count as troops) with either the stardrake or the big dude in the battalion for a 2 drop list. The big idea with this list is that you can go ahead and play "all the dragons", and put 8 models on the table. Nothing particularly special otherwise though. List 2 - Stormdrake Spam Knight-Draconis - 255pts 6x Stormdrake - 855pts 2x Stormdrake - 285pts 2x Stormdrake - 285pts 2x Stormdrake - 285pts 1965 points This list is looking to focus on fielding more dragons than anyone else - and I think it does a good job there. 3 units of 2 stormdrakes gives you some manuverability, however you will have to keep in mind that damagewise, Stormdrake Guard aren't all that great. A squad of 2 can expect to put out an average of 12 damage to a 5+ save, which for 285 points isn't particularly impressive, and they will do an additional 1.8 mortal wounds on average with their breath attacks. The reason for the squad of 6 though is that the Knight-Draconis gives a squad of Stormdrake Guard the ability to use their breath weapons in the shooting phase once per game. 1.8 mortal wounds... isn't really worth that. However, 5.5 mortal wounds in the hero phase, followed by another 5.5 in the shooting phase is starting to get in the range of respectable. Coherency is going to be a bit of an issue depending upon base sizes, but if these guys are on 105mm/70mm (which is what I personally am kind of expecting, and that is the same base size as the "Dreadlord on Black Dragon"), then as long as you can have 2 models sandwiching a 3rd, you will be within 3" coherency. Alternatively, if the models don't allow you to do that, you should be able to stick 5 up front and 1 across the back to keep your coherency. Some experimentation will need to be done to determine if this is good enough to work with though. It also means that your opponents will have to go through 54 wounds with a 3+ save as well. Finally, the above list falls perfectly into a battle regiment, meaning that you can put this down as a 1 drop list. Are either of the above lists good? Probably not. Am I going to run them anyways? Absolutely. Finally, for those of you out there wanting to run "all the dragons" but also wanting to field both Krondys and Karazi, there is some hope. Hammers of Sigmar Krondys - 600pts Karazi - 600pts 2x Stormdrake -285pts 2x Stormdrake - 285pts 2x Fulminators - 230pts (or concussors for 220pts) This comes out to exactly 2k points (provided I'm reading the points from GMG's video right). Do I know how I am going to run things? Nope. I'm probably going to build for list 1 first, mostly because I want the big dragon at least once, and I already have a stardrake. But I'm probably going to build towards the second list as well long term because... well.. dragons.

Sadly, GW decided not to make a stormhost that make Evokittens battleline. We are all very disappointed by this decision of theirs, but I suppose that we'll live. I was however looking forward to 18 kitties... There are several massive changes that affect kitty builds. The first is that the Heraldor no longer gives you retreat/run/charge. This means that if kitties get stuck in, they are staying in until their target is removed. The second is that you no longer have easy access to the +1 to hit from the Lord-Arcanum on Dracoline, or the re-roll 1's on the charge from celestial vindicators. The loss of the +1 to his is fairly easily remedied from various other sources, but the loss of re-roll 1's to hit is a fairly noticeable change to their consistency. Next up, there is no longer an easy way to give a whole unit +1 attacks, like from the Celestial Vindicators command ability. We do get an 18" bubble of +1 mount attacks from the Lord-Arcanum on dracoline (which since it doesn't cost any CP, is pretty nice). But there is no way for the whole unit to get extra attacks outside of a once per game ability. Empower also got changed, so now it is just a +1 to wound, instead of re-rolling... which is... fine? Kind of makes Celestial blades redundant though. The final notable change is that the kitties always do d3 damage, no longer d3 only on the charge. What does all of this mean? First off, there is really very little reason to want to run kitties in reinforced units anymore. Since we don't have any good way of just throwing a ton of buffs on them, we probably want to run 1-3 packs of MSU kittens, and if possible stay close to the Lord-Arcanum on Dracoline. Next, we don't really care about trying to get them to be always charging like we used to, though they are still squishy enough that we don't really want to just leave them stuck in forever. They are also still one of the fastest units in the book, and the always get re-rollable charges, which should help you get stuck in even if you drop them from the sky, or Translocate them. Right now, if I were looking to build a kitty focused force, I would look to do something like the following: Lord-Relictor - general, High Priest, Translocate Lord-Arcanum on Dracoline Knight-Azyros 1-3 Evocats 6 Longstrikes battleline of choice A force like this could operate well in either a stormkeep or a scions of the storm list. You have your battleline of choice, some longstrikes + translocate to be able to damage whoever you feel like, the Lord-Arcanum can follow the evokitties around and just keep them in the bubble, and the Knight-Azyros can move up close to provide his +1 to hit bubble, giving our kittes a 2+/2+ profile. The lack of significant amounts of rend means that they probably want to go around cleaning up battleline/chaff/etc and you will want to bring a big heavy hitter or 3 in to deal with harder targets.

The key things that you probably want to look for is what do you want to build around? The first thing to look at is battleline. Generically, you can have Arkanaught battleline, which means getting a few boxes of them is a good place to start. Next, if you want to commit to having a Endrinmaster w/ Dirigible Suit, you can run either Endrinriggers or Skywardens as battleline. Finally, if you are willing to stick to a specific city, then you can get either Frigates, Gunhaulers or thunderers as battleline. Depending upon what you want to focus on, it will change whether or not the various boxes are worth it to you. If you don't know what you want to play with, a good way to start is with the start collecting, and then a box of Arkanaught Company. This will give you a little bit of everything to experiment with, and then make a decision on what you like playing with. If you want to build around having a frigate, the old battleforce is a decent way of starting, provided of course that you can find one. If you really like the Balloon boys, then grabbing the Broken Realms box is decent, or you can possibly get the older Kharadron VS Tzeentch box which gives you the same models but also gives you an extra gunhauler. Finally, something else to consider is you can get the warcry box, which is going to give you a squad of endrinriggers/skywardens and a squad of thunderers, at a pretty decent discount over buying them individually. For myself, I built out my force with a start collecting, an Ironclad, a squad of Arkanaughts, the Kharadron vs Tzeentch box, the warcry box, and then the Underworlds box (because I wanted a Khemist, and the underworlds box gives you a khemist AND a few test models). This then gives me the following army: Endrinmaster w/ Dirigible Suit Endrinmaster w/ endrinharness Khemist Ironclad 2x Gunhauler 10 Thunderers 12 Endrinriggers 10 Arkanaught Company This comes out to 2035 points, but requires that I run the Endrinmaster w/ Dirigible Suit as my general if I put them on the field. You can end up with a very similar army by getting 2 start collectings, the Broken Realms box, a squad of Arkanaughts, and an Ironclad. That being said, if that force doesn't interest you, then look for the interesting models and get them instead. The above force has never actually been fielded as a KO army yet (I primarily got them so I can have endrinriggers or ironclad + thunderers coalition with my Tempest Eye army in the Cities of Sigmar), though I have fielded some of the models.

No. Cities cannot take Stormcast as Allies, which means that there can never be a case where you have more than 1/4 units as stormcast.

Personally, all I ask is that your models are (mostly) assembled and on appropriate sized bases, and you are consistent with what a model is. For example, I'm not going to be happy if you are proxying some Chaos Warriors as Blood Warriors, but also running another unit of Chaos Warriors as Chaos Warriors. I would much rather play against people testing units out before they decide if they like it enough to make it a core part of their army than someone who is grumpy because they can't play with their newest toy. All this being said, that is my feelings for if we are just casually playing at the store. I am 100% ok with a Tournament requiring everything to be "tabletop ready". I'm 100% ok with a league requiring models be painted to play, as long as players also have a chance to play with their unpainted models outside of that league. If I am going to a tournament that I am paying money to enter, I am ok with their being higher standards.

That rule is written into Path To Glory and for the matched play rules in the Core Rulebook. It is however not a rule listed in the GHB 2021 rules. For a 2k game, this one model is basically the only time that the rule is relevant, but if you are playing a smaller game (ex. 1k list), this does mean that you can for instance run a list that looks like: Allarielle (740pts) Branchwraith (95pts) 2x 5 Tree-Revenants (80pts/unit) Something to keep in mind as future battlepacks are released is that each battlepack is self contained. The points limit is not written into the core rules anywhere, it is all battlepack specific. So you need to carefully read each battlepack to find what the special rules for that battlepack are. Come next year with GHB2022, we are going to get a whole new battlepack, and all the rules are going to change. We might be fighting in Shysh, and the rules might have extra points to encourage the usage of battleline, or horde units, and we will have an entire new set of battle tactics and grand strategies.

Honestly, the only thing that I can think of that would make ballista's worth it is if they were able to put out ~5 damage when all buffed up. Considering that you can't all out attack more than one at a time, and you can't unleash hell on more than one at a time, having an artillery piece that can put out 5 rend -2 damage at short range (and maybe 3 at long range) might make them playable. Note here the key point - when all buffed up. That means giving them a +1 to hit, which basically is mandating a Lord-Ordinator accompanying them. At 140 points per ballista, and another ~150 for the Lord-Ordinator, that is 710 points that you are dumping into your artillery core - over 1/3 of a 2k list. For warscroll abilities, I could see them being worth it if there was some sort of condition for getting +1 damage on their attacks. Ex. +1 damage vs Monsters. If there were sub-faction abilities that gave bonus damage, or bonus attacks, or something like that, I could also see it being worth it situationally. To note just how ridiculous this damage is, lets compare it to a unit that does see actual play - Lumineth Sentinals. A single one of these new ballista's is going to put out 3 damage at short range, and 2.5 damage at long range. A squad of 10 sentinals with lofted shots that didn't get their spell off is going to put out ~3.3 damage. Got their spell off (mortals on a 5+), and we can bump that up to ~4 damage. Spell off AND within 18" (same close range as the ballista) - this jumps up to 5 damage. Sentinals are considered "scalpel" units. They aren't on the field to do a ton of damage - they are on the field to pick off enemy hero's, support pieces, and maybe weaken a heavy hitter before it hits your line. This seems to be a VERY similar niche to what Ballista's should be doing as well, and both units cost about the same number of points. But Sentinals have more bodies for objectives, more mobility, almost the same range, and nearly double the damage at those same ranges. More importantly, you can take a block of 20-30 sentinals, and buff that entire unit with all out attack, or use unleash hell with it. As a stormcast army, I would almost rather bring a block of 20 sentinals as an allied unit than bring any ballista's. They can sit on objectives better, have a similar reach on the board, and do better damage application. A squad of 20 can match 4 ballista's without an ordinator at both 18" and at 30", but do so with having half the points spent.

Taking a look at the average damage for the new ballistas vs the old: Rapid Fire mode: Old Ballista's would put out an average of 3.11 damage to a 5+ save, assuming no buffs New ballistas will put out an average of 2.33 damage to a 5+ save, assuming no buffs Ranged Mode: Old ballista would put out an average of 1.56 damage to a 5+ save, assuming no buffs New ballista would put out an average of 1.94 damage to a 5+ save, assuming no buffs Basically, the old ballista was always better than the new one in rapid fire, but the new one is always better than the old one at range. It evened things out a bit that way. Interestingly enough, the new ballista does the same damage in either rapid fire or range to a 4+ save, but once you get down to a 3+, the long range attack is just always better. However, if you get a +1 to hit, the rapid fire is slightly better vs a 3+ than the long range attack. All of the above being said, even if you take a block of 4 of these guys and give them a +1 to hit (ex. if the Lord-Ordinator still has a +1 to hit bubble), you are still only looking at an average of 12 damage per shooting phase. The old ballista's with a Lord-Ordinator in rapid fire were putting out over 18 damage per shooting phase, and even then bringing them was a bit questionable. Its hard to see what GW thinks the roll of artillery in this game is, because it does so much less damage than a similar number of points in a different shooting unit, and the board is small enough and movement fast enough that it is hard to justify something that just straight up does so much less damage.

So I've gotten a few games in over the past 2 months. My local store started a "Path to Glory" campaign, starting at 600 points and growing. We didn't read the rules closely enough to figure out that my army was actually "illegal" at 600 points, but after the first games it got increased a bit to be legal and no one cared. My Army: Tempest Eye Starting: Warlord - Annointed on Frostheart Phoenix, Master of Magic, Arcane Tome 10 Phoenix Guard Emerald Lifeswarm Addition 1: 20 Darkshards Addition 2: 10 Phoenix Guard Addition 3: Flamespyre Phoenix I've played with that army in about 9 games (that I can remember) so far, and here are my results: Game 1: 600 points vs Ironjaws, win for me. My opponent couldn't break 10 phoenix guard inside a -1 to wound aura, which then got healed back up by the lifeswarm. He tried pulling off a turn 1 charge with a squad of pigs, but the pigs couldn't kill the guard with a 4+ save and +2 save between tempest eye turn 1 and all out defense. The counter charge then took out his megaboss, and his remaining units coudn't break the guard with lifeswarm healing them up. Game 2: 600 points vs Lumineth, win for me. On a small board, tempest eye basically can have a guaranteed turn 1 charge, and going first meant I could get in and do enough damage that he didn't have enough damage to go through phoenix guard backed up by lifeswarm. Game 3: 600 points vs Lumineth (different player), win for me. Same story as above. Game 4: 800 points vs Sylvaneth, loss for me. Brand new darkshards and my opponent hid in the woods, making them utterly pointless. Kurnoth Hunters sitting in the woods defending his hero's also meant that I had to try to go into the woods to kick him out, or lose to repeated dryad summoning, but Kurnoth's were rocking between +2 to +3, and his wizard was able to return slain models AND heal them up, making them impossible to move. This lead the game to be one where I was able to get an advantage early on, but wasn't able to keep momentum up and my opponent was able to take the game back. Game 5: 1000 points vs Tzeentch, win for me. My opponent wasn't playing path to glory, so we played a matched play game with the 3 shifting objectives in the middle. Fast movement allowed me to get the objectives early and tie up his forces, and then I was able to eliminate the units that he had that could actually go through a block of phoenix guard, which basically lead to an automatic victory as he couldn't shift me off of the objectives. Game 6: 1000 points vs Sylvaneth, loss for me. Battle plan was the one where you try to get across the board and leave, which was an interesting alternative to the "engage in the middle and smash for a while" that most of the other path to glory battle plans are. Adding in more phoenix guard gave me more melee punch, but my opponent added Durthu. Once again, darkshards were mostly useless, but at least this time they got shot off by Durthu rather than just sitting around doing nothing. Lucky rolls by my opponent on two separate turns prevented me from killing his revenants, which prevented me from getting units off the board. Game 7: 600 points vs Cities, loss for me. Path to glory is funny, because 2 Dreadlord on Black Dragons is as a matter of fact a valid 600 point army. The tankyness of the dreadlords in a Living City army, combined with the Heroic Recovery ended with my phoenix guard wiped by turn 2, and then 2 dreadlords managed to take down my phoenix on turn 4 due to some lucky rolls with the bite attacks and some very unlucky ward saves for my phoenix (double 6's on damage followed by 10 failed ward saves does that for you...). Game 8: 1250 points vs Tzeentch, Loss for me. Different Tzeentch opponent, and another matched play game. This time my opponent was playing guild of summoners and was able to summon their first big bird on turn 1, their second on turn 3, and I underestimated how annoying pink horrors would be, so got stuck in them for 3 battle rounds. The fact that the Flamespyre now only deals "wake of fire" damage on a "Normal move" is also a rather extreme nerf to the unit, as I can no longer retreat out of combat and deal some mortals, or deal mortals on a charge/pile in. Technically I also can't run and deal mortals, though we didn't realize that till after the game. As it is, the Flamespyre either needs an errata or a new warscroll, because as it is it probably isn't worth the 290 points compared to just running another Frostheart. Game 9: 1250 points vs Stormcast, loss for me. Another matched play game, one with 3 objectives along the diagonal. My opponent put a stardrake down with staunch defender and Amulet of Destiny, and then was running Vindictors for Battleline. The stardrake was actually able to go through a squad of phoenix guard in just 2 rounds of combat, but then got stuck in a slap fest with the Frostheart, and not much happened after that. The Flamespyre got unlucky on his wake of fire, and then got stuck in with some Evocators on Dracolines and proceeded to die, and then the remaining kitty was easily able to handle the darkshards that were controlling one of the objectives. Finally, Ghur ate the one objective that I was in control of on turn 3, putting my opponent far enough ahead that there was no path to victory available. Overall, I can say that Path to Glory is pretty fun, and gives me a good reason to stick to the same army for a bit. I think it is a huge improvement over the previous path to glory campaign, because you choose how you are going to grow your army rather than having to roll and see what models you get. This is especially important with large factions like the cities, because while I have a decently sized collection, I have less than 1/4 of the units in the cities, making it very hard to roll on the units I actually have and want to expand my army with. Additionally, the ability to play your path to glory army against non-path to glory opponents means that you can still experiment and play with your force without having to make allowances for having a really off army. As for game impressions, big hero monsters are a problem in small games. In larger games where you can just throw a bunch of stuff at them they are less of an issue, but a lot of my smaller games have come down to them being unkillable because there just isn't enough damage possible for a faction to go through the unit at that points level. There is a similar issue with high-save units, especially when backed up by some healing/resurrection. Those units do need a bit more support than the hero monsters though, which makes them a bit more balanced as you do have the option of trying to go after their support. There is also a very strong case of "Haves" and "Have Nots", even within battletomes. Phoenix Guard are good. Darkshards... not. Pink Horrors are good. Tzaangors... not so much. This isn't even getting into the differences between battletomes, where some are clearly better than others. If everyone is willing to balance their armies around other people, this can be worked around - I'll bring more darkshards against opponents who are running "bad" units/armies, and more phoenix guard against the "good" ones. However, if you don't have large collections already, it can be really hard to build collections that allow you to have fun games against all comers.

The palladors got changed. It used to be fly 6d6", but is now a straight up re-deploy. Warning cry. This used to be a rule for the gryph hounds. In this description, it appears to have been changed to affect the accompanying gryph hounds for the Knight-Judicator instead. Note that accompanying gryph hounds from the old book (ex. Castellent) were individual single models, but counted as part of a completely separate warscroll, while now they are being treated more like crew on a war machine (see the new Lord-Imperitant). It remains to be seen if the warning cry is still a rule for the independent gryph hounds. Additionally, the numbers got slightly tweaked (12" range instead of 10", and affecting 3 stormcast units wholly within 12" instead of all wholly within 9"). Darting attacks is still the same though, and the chariot is obviously new.

Without any support, Sisters will deal more damage than irondrakes and be more maneuverable, in exchange for being slightly more expensive and less durable. Additionally, sisters get a free "unleash hell" if they get charged. However, once you start adding support, Irondrakes can surpass sisters - but to do that they need to a runelord, longbeards, and a way to get +1/+1, which is going to be hard to do in a stormkeep rather than in the cities. Other decent options for the stormkeeps are Phoenix Guard, as with a 4+ ward they are tankier than most stormcast stuff. That being said, with the Stormkeeps getting bonus holding objectives makes the basic stormcast battleline look fairly nice compared to the guard. Shadow Walkers are good as a unit that can come down and take lightly defended objectives and force your opponent to hold back. Sisters of the Thorn can be an option as a mobile cavalry/wizard unit. Finally, hero's. Grabbing an Annointed on Frostheart/Flamespyre can give you a really tanky fast moving monster, though they both struggle some with hitting hard. Dreadlords on Black Dragons can also be decent as a tanky monster, though to really shine they really want to bring the Amulet of Destiny. Griffons are another option, though again like the dreadlord they kind of want the Amulet of Destiny. The Celestial Hurricanum with Battlemage is also a really solid unit, with 2 solid damage dealing spells and a ranged attack that deals mortal wounds, all while giving itself a +1 to its cast. That being said, do be aware that its +1 to hit bubble only affects Cities units, so it isn't going to buff your stormcast. Finally, if you want to meme, you can bring a steam tank (or two), and the steam tanks will still be buffed by an accompanying Lord-Ordinator. Overall, if I were to bring some cities units in a stormkeep, I would probably start by grabbing a Phoenix. Unless you are going heavy on Stormcast fast movers, stormcast tend to be rather slow, and adding in a phoenix gives you a fast moving anvil that gives you a solid monster, and can also function in a stormcast deathstar. Alternatively, if you do have 1 unit of fast movers (fulminators, dracolines, the new dragons), the Phoenix gives you a leader that can accompany them to help function as a fast moving hammer. If I didn't bring a phoenix, anything else that I bring is probably going to be more for flavor than because it is really going to help the army. In the current stormkeeps, Cities infantry provide a good option to get more bodies to hold objectives, but the new stormkeep rules that gives your basic units the ability to count as 3 on an objective make that option a bit worse than before.

I think you really need to make the choice of whether you are running the Annihilators OR the evocators. They both want to do more or less the same thing - drop from the sky, make a charge, and then lay the beatdown on. Evocators deal more mortal wounds after they attack, while Annihilators will deal more on entry/charge, so don't necessarily always have to attack first, and also can afford to deal some chip damage all around rather than just hitting a single unit. However, if you end up running both, I think your list will suffer from trying to go too far "all in" on that one thing. Both units want to drop from the sky, both units want to be wholly within 12" of gavriel for the extra 3" to charge, and both units are going to be sitting around doing not much after they clear out whatever they attack. Though at least here the Annihilators will be a bit more survivable to non-mortal wound damage.

Nurgle can not take Pestilens as Allies, but can take them as Coalition. This means that you are still limited to 1/4 units, but you aren't limited in any way by points. If they hadn't put the restriction in that your general can't be coalition, and you can't use coalition battleline, this would have meant that you could have done 2/4 StD, 1/4 Pestilens, and 1/4 Beasts of chaos, leaving 0 actual Nurgle units... but the general and battleline restrictions means that in a 2k game you will always have to have a minimum of 4 Nurgle units.

Well... I guess I'm getting another 2k points of stormcast now. I kind of hope that they change the "battleline if" rules to be if you have the Knight Draconish OR one of the stardrakes (not that I have a problem with the Knight-Draconis... but stardrakes are cool too - and I already have 1). Also will help my cities because clearly I am suffering from a lack of dragons there as well. Hopefully they point them such that you can make an actual 2k list with them and not have to worry about throwing in 200ish points of chaff because they cost too much. Because lets be real - if I want to play a dragon army, I want it to be all dragons, none of that silly infantry stuff.

Had a few games yesterday, my store is doing a path to glory league starting at 600 points. I did 2 games with phoenix guard backed up by a caster with the emerald lifeswarm. A squad of 10 phoenix guard is enough to mow through most enemies, and the emerald lifeswarm meant that even though one opponent killed 9/10 of the guard, they were back up to full strength by the end of the game. Since you have a chance of getting casualties for each model that died in the unit in a path to glory campaign, which will then cost you glory points to recuperate, being able to end the game back at full strength can save you a lot of glory points. Aside from the pure tankyness that is phoenix guard though, I do have some issues with path to glory. A lot of the battles have been focused on "bodies on a location", which gives more hordy factions more power, and also can make more skirmishy armies less useful. Got a bunch of dudes you can charge in and get frisky with? Your army will do great for Path to Glory. Want to do some chip damage and use your mobility to whittle down your opponent? Hope you like losing a lot. Additionally, all the battles start with everyone really close to each other, meaning you generally are getting off charges on turn 1, which makes some armies much more useful than others. Basically, it seems that GW has learned a good bit about what makes for some fun, balanced, and diverse games for tournament play, and you can see this with their multiple battleplans and scoring systems. But then they appear to have forgotten to apply any of that to anything other than matched play, and those other play methods are suffering for that.

For 500 points, you aren't going to get much. On its own, the greywater start collecting is already 360 points, leaving you basically enough room to build that and add a 2nd unit of ironbreakers/longbeards. If you build the ironbreakers in the box as irondrakes, you are left with 95 points, which is enough for... nothing, unless you replace the cogsmith with something else. If you are looking to expand out to 1000 points though, your options open up a bit. The "Core" of an irondrakes list is: Runelord 20 Irondrakes On its own, this is 420 points. From here, the "best" way to expand it out is to add in a squad of 10 longbeards (giving re-roll 1's to wound to the irondrakes, screening them, and giving you your second squad of battleline). This brings you up to 525 points. However, this build is very slow, and isn't really going to be able to move around and hold objectives. It is going to murder anything that walks up to it though. From here, I would look to build the rest of your force out to play the objective game. If you want to stick with dwarfs, gyrocopters and gyrobombers are decent, but not great. To add some mobility and be able to threaten your opponent, you can also go ahead and run a battlemage and the soulscream bridge, allowing you to redeploy your army on the table. Otherwise, you can look to add a second threating force, and bring a unit of hammerers and a warden king. Here is an example 1k force: Runelord (general, artifact - arcane tome) Warden King 10 Longbeards 20 Irondrakes 20 Hammerers Soulscream Bridge Recommended City: Tempest Eye or Hallowheart Example force 2: Runelord 10 Longbeards 10 Longbeards 20 Irondrakes Gyrobomber Gyrobomber Gyrobomber Gyrobomber Example force 3: Runelord (general) Celestial Hurricanum w/ Celestial Battlemage 10 Longbeards 10 Ironbreakers 20 Irondrakes Soulscream Bridge Recommended City: Tempest Eye or Hallowheart The recommendations for tempest eye are because tempest eye gives you extra movement turn 1, the ability to run and shoot for a command point, and you can have a general trait that gives an aura of +1 to wound. This gives you extra shooting power for your irondrakes, as well as the ability to get them in position to contest objectives. The recommendation for Hallowheart is due to it giving you 2 spell casts for each wizard (and arcane tome makes you a wizard), and you get a spell that gives +1 to wound. Combine this with either the Hurricanum or all out attack, and you can have your irondrakes with a profile of 2+/2+rr1/-2/1.

Slaves to darkness is an army that specializes in being tanky and hard to move. However, in doing so, it tends to lack in damage output. You can certainly win games without archaeon, but you probably aren't going to win a tournament without him. This may not be a big deal though if you just want to play casually, and against other people wanting to play casually. If you want a "Norsca" style army, then I recommend looking into running marauders/marauder horsemen. This can give you 2 30 blocks of marauders at 2k, which can be combined with a Chaos Sorcerer Lord and one of the StD Allegience spells to be able to teleport them into place and nearly guarantee a charge. Then, you can back this up with some 5 man blocks of marauder horsemen to manuever around and try to take objectives. For the rest of your army, you can try running some chariots, or just stack up on some hero's to see what happens. For bonus points, you can run Ravagers and use a command point each turn to summon in a set of Marauders/Horsemen on the board edges to keep the pressure up all game. Here is an example list: Ravagers: Chaos Sorcerer Lord Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore Chaos Lord Chaos Lord on Karkadrak Chaos Lord on Manticore Ogroid Myrmidon 2x 30 Marauders 3x 5 Marauder Horsemen This list would work well as a "Norsca" style army under the Ravagers allegience. It also is running 6 hero's, and can actually run 2 of the battalions to give you an extra enhancement. This is in addition to the Ravagers allegience allowing every hero to have their own command trait, meaning you can be running around with 6 command traits and 3 artefacts. Is it a good list? Probably not. It is not a tournament winning list. However, I would bet that this list could play nicely with some of the various B tier armies out there.

Easiest way to boost sisters of the watch is to stick them next to a stardrake. Other than that though, there isn't any other way for them to boost their casting, as everything else either specifies wizards, or another sub-set of the cities.

Coalition units can be 1/4 units in your army, and cannot be your general. But they can still take artefacts/mount traits, cast spells, etc. Depending on the battlepack, they may or may not count as battleline (Note here that the GHB2021 battlepack doesn't restrict them from being battleline, but the matched play battlepack in the core rulebook does restrict them from being battleline). Lastly, note that it is 1/4 units, and not 1/4 points. A valid army is to bring 2 Lord-Celestant's on stardrakes and back it up with 900 points of cities chaff, as long as you have at least 6 units of chaff. In general, I find that the cities best benefit from bringing something that is hard for them to get in the cities units themselves. Considering that they already have 60+ warscrolls to choose from... this isn't much. This means that you can pretty easily run Cities armies with no stormcast units at all, but there are a few that consistently make it in. The biggest thing that cities likes to bring is stormcast wizards. Why? Every single wizard in the cities is rocking a 5+ save. However, the stormcast wizards are generally rocking a 3+, making them significantly more durable. The downside is that the warscroll spells on the cities wizards are all generally better. But if what you really want to do is cast a spell from your cities spell lore, then a stormcast wizard is looking really nice. There are use cases for basically all the stormcast wizards here, but in general it boils down to "how many points do I have to spend here" and "how fast do I want my wizard?". Lord-Exorcists, Knight-Incantors, Knight-Arcanum and Lord-Arcanum's are all foot hero's who would stand in for a battlemage/sorceress on foot - though here usually it is the Lord-Excorcist if you want cheap, or Knight-Incantor if you want the auto-unbind scroll. Then you have the Lord-Arcanum on Gryph Charger/Dracoline if you want a basic caster with a 12" move. Finally, you have the Lord-Arcanum on Taurelion who is the only unit that can go in any city and have 2 casts. After the wizards, the Celestant-Prime can be a decent hero to bring because he can still deploy in the sky with his warscroll ability rather than needing the allegiance ability. Yndrasta can also be good as a big beatstick that beats most of the beatsticks available in the cities, and specializes as a monster hunter. Then you have the cavalry in Evocators on Dracolines, the various Dracothian Guard units (concussors, fulminators, desolators) and Vanguard Pallidors who all do something that the regular cities units may find hard to match. Finally, Stormcast have some shooting that doesn't bonus's for staying still, meaning you can bring a squad of judicators and have them running around and not be forced to castle up to get the most out of them. In general though, cities have better shooting, better chaff, and better melee infantry than Stormcast do. This means that there are only a few models/units from stormcast that cities really want to bring, outside of "because I have them". That being said, if what you are really wanting to do is bring a Lord-Arcanum on Taurelion, Cities does run that a lot better than stormcast does (in my opinion), and I would totally consider building an army around wanting to bring that.

Probably the biggest key is to put a block of heavy hitters in the sky. This can be units of Annihilators (maybe + gavriel?), or ballista's + ordinator, or a bunch of Evocators + gavriel. But if they are off the board, they can't be shot off/magicked off. However, whatever you put up there needs to come down and hit like a train, because one of the things stormcast generally lack is mobility, so you need to make sure that your opponent can't run away from you. Beyond that, everything else boils down to what your opponent is bringing. MSU units on the board are decent for making life hard for Sentinals, but die to Teclis just blowing things up. MSU units also don't do so good when they run into blocks of Stoneguard or Blademasters, but they give you the flexibility to contest windriders. Basically, this comes down to playing against whatever your opponents bring, and then rating the units by how useful they were - and in the next game, try to bring more useful units and drop the ones that did poorly.

Having played some games with 3.0 so far: Unleash hell hasn't been an issue. It is fine counterplay to make the attacker think about who's charging what and in what order, but the restriction on 1 unit per turn, costing a CP (which might be better spent elsewhere), and the -1 to hit have all combined to make it not a big deal. All this being said, I haven't played against Lumineth Sentinals with unleash hell. And EVERYTHING that people have been complaining about as a "Big Problem" has been Sentinels with unleash hell. This doesn't mean unleash hell is the problem. It means Sentinels are the problem, and they need some re-balancing. Raise their points, make their sunmetal weapons only trigger in the shooting phase, remove their battleline status so you can't have a block of 30 of them, whatever. If Sentinels are the problem, then Sentinels need to be addressed - not unleash hell. In the meantime, if someone brings a block of 30-60 sentinels to your table, just politely tell them that you aren't interested in playing them if that is what they are running, and you would rather not play a game than play against that. They'll either get the message, or they will play someone else and you can play with someone who isn't bringing a list that triggers you so hard.

Pulled out my Cities for two games earlier this week. Game 1 was against another cities player. My list: City: Hallowheart Annointed on Frostheart - Arcane Tome Annointed on Foot - General Knight-Incantor - Adjutant, Amulet of Destiny Ghur Battlemage 30x Phoenix Guard 20x Phoenix Guard 20x Phoenix Guard Emerald Lifeswarm Cogs My opponent: City: Excelsius? General on Griffon - general, 5+ ward Artefact Annointeted on Frostheart - Gryph Feather Charm Hysh Battlemage 3x3 Demigryph Knights 2x 20 Phoenix Guard After writing this out, it looks like my opponent may have been mis-reading the new warscroll battalions (or excelsius has a rule about giving out +1 artefact), because otherwise he couldn't have taken the battalion to get an extra artefact. Not too surprising, as this isn't the first time that this particular opponent has mis-represented his army. The battleplan was Tooth and Nail from the Generals Handbook. I set up my army with the Phoenix and 20 guard near one of the middle objectives, 20 phoenix guard and battlemage at my objective, and 30 guard + annointed + incantor at the other middle objective. My opponent deployed 20 guard at his home objective, and then the rest of his army nearby the objective that I deployed my phoenix at, with the goal of crushing my forces with superior numbers. Turn 1, he went first, and moved to claim the objective with guard and general, and put his demigryphs and phoenix nearby to counter-charge if I fought him over it. My turn I moved up to take the objective with my 30 guard, moved by 20 by the phoenix into a defensive position, and then charged his griffon with my phoenix. We both used finest hour and Titanic Duel... and nothing happened. My phoenix did 2 damage, which he healed up next turn, and he did 3 damage, and I healed 2 of it. 2 more rounds of combat followed that with us hitting each other with wiffle ball bats before he moved his griffon away, charged with a unit of demi's, and charged with his griffon (command trait to retreat and charge apparently), which finally managed to take my phoenix down. It was... sad. Nearby, my 20 guard charged his 20 guard, a lot of nothing happened, and then he got a lucky set of attacks to my unlucky ones and managed to secure dominance, taking that objective pretty thoroughly. In the middle, my 20 guard charged 2 units of his demi's, wiping 1 out and damaging the second, but leaving my home objective unsecured, which he took advantage of with his phoenix. Finally, my 30 guard were doing their best to move on his home objective, and were moving kind of slowly. We called this on turn 3, because he took the upper right objective and my home objective, and had half his army surrounding the remnants of my 20 guard. Even if he just avoided my 30 man block and let me have objectives, I couldn't hold enough with 1 unit to win, so it was basically an automatic victory for him. That being said - I might need to spend some time looking over the rules, because it is quite clear looking back on it that he was playing fast and loose with some of them. Game 2 I ran Cities vs Stormcast. My list: City: Living City Annointed on Frostheart - Arcane Tome Dreadlord on Black Dragon - Amulet of Destiny Annointed - General Knight-Incantor - Adjutant 30x Phoenix Guard 3x 10 Phoenix Guard Emerald Lifeswarm My Opponent Stormhost: none - was using the rules from the dominion box set Yndrasta Lord-Imperatant - General Knight-Arcanum Knight-Vexilor w/ Banner of Apotheosis 10x Vindictors 2x 5 Vindictors 2x 3 Praetors 2x 3 Annihilators Battle Plan, Power in Numbers. Here my opponent put 10 Vindictors and the Knight-Vexilor on one of the side objectives, Yndrasta and 5 Vindictors on the other side, the Annihilators in the sky, and everything else around the center objective. For myself, I put a unit of 10 guard on each objective, and then my block of 30 in the center with the my hero's behind it. Point to note - Power in Numbers states that if battleline are near an objective, then only battleline can contest them, which gave my force a MASSIVE advantage. Turn 1, I moved forward with everything except my objective holders, keeping my 30 man block between my hero's and his forces. He converged on the center with most of his forces, and dropped a squad of 3 annihilators one one of my side objectives to try and move my guard (very unsuccessfully... he did kill 4 of them though). Turn 2, I kept priority and charged my 30 guard into... most of his army, obliterating his 5 man squad of Vindictors and doing a bit of damage to yndrasta and one of his squads of praetors. This secured me his central objective, which I promptly burned for 1 victory point. My Phoenix moved over to support my guard against his Annihilators, while my dreadlord attempted to make a move on the objective he was holding with only 5 Vindictors (doing his best to go anywhere Yndrasta wasn't). The dreadlord then lived up to his history, and proceeded to fail to bite anything with his jaws over 3 rounds of combat (he killed 4 vindictors over those 3 rounds... but this is the ~12th time he has hit the field for me and he has successfully bitten something ONCE ... ever). My opponent dropped his second round of Annihilators and attempted to charge, but failed to get it off. He converged most of his army on my squad of Guard in the center, and then proceeded to kill off a few models per battle round. Turn 3, I won the roll off, but let him take the turn, using the Ghur ability to eat the one objective he controlled that I wasn't moving towards. He continued to beat on my 30 man squad, dropping it down to only 6 models remaining, but had to burn his last remaining objective so that I wouldn't take it when I finally managed to kill of his last vindicator on it in my turn. This scored him 4 points, but I was then able to burn all 3 of my objectives for another 12 points, putting me at 15 from objectives to his 6. At this point we called it, because my grand strategy was to keep at least 1 unit of battleline alive, and his was to kill my general, who was now running away from the rest of his army like a madman. But with no objectives left on the field, there really was no way for him to come back. My overall impressions of 3.0 after these games: The first big hero monster is really good. The second starts to suffer from diminishing returns though, both because of the limit of 1 heroic action, and because it is going to be really hard to get additional artefacts (battalion rules state that you can have 1 hero monster and 2 non-monster hero's per battalion to get an enhancement, meaning you can get an absolute maximum of 3 enhancements, and then only if you limit yourself to 2 monstrous hero's). This leads me to think that most armies are going to be well served to bring 1 monstrous hero, and only a 2nd if they have some really good options. Everything is more survivable. I am well aware that 60 phoenix guard on the table is going to be rough for basically anyone to go through, in 3.0 or in 2.0. The whole reason you take them in the first place is their tankyness. But running into units with a 2+ or 3+ save is really rough, and leads to a lot less lethality. Hero's with good saves, wards, and the ability to heal is also a big deal, as it means that they can just stick around for a while. The new command point usage also makes games more interesting as well, as I have actions in most of my opponents phases as well now, which leads to less sitting around. The limit of 1 usage of a particular command per phase also came up a few times and ruined my opponent's plans, and made me more cautious of "is this really what I want to do?". Overall, I find 3.0 to be more fun and engaging than 2.0. I'm not exactly going out and playing against top end competitive lists at the moment, and if I end up facing someone with a block of 30 sentinels my opinion might change. Playing without shooting armies though, the rules are quite fun and entertaining. As for my armies, I prefer my army build for the 2nd match much more than the one for the first. Having dedicated objective holders, and then offensive hammers that I can send out to punch things gave me a lot more flexibility. If I had taken my first army to my second game, I think it may have turned out very differently because I couldn't have moved forward as aggressively, and would have had to give up a lot of real estate to my opponent.