Zeblasky

Yep, it is a bad idea. The sooner GW realises their mistake, the better it will be for all of us. I hope that other factions sucess (like Lumineth) and as well as overall factions diverse popularity will kill flagship faction mindset. They can push Stormcast only as far as they sell. When they will finally see, that this is not a profitable strategy and making models for other races gives them more money, they will do it.

You know, seeing another kinda generic bunch of models made for Stormcast (archers look pretty cool with capes and without masks though, not gonna lie, this new direction is much better) makes me wish GW would stop making models for them at least until the next edition and instead would give existing ones better rules and would give new models to factions that are desperately in need of those. Stromcast are not even close to Space marines status, so giving them so many redundant models hurts both AoS as a whole and Stormcast players in particular. The more models your faction have, the bigger chance for them to be redundant, forgotten or even squatted over time. And considering how fast Stormcast range gets expanded and without much of internal rebalancing, this does not look good for them.

You know, I've just realised another good combo for this city - using Annointed on Fire Phoenix as General with a Cunning Foe trait. This is the only way to get Retreat and Charge in CoS, meaning that, besides getting that great trait bonus, you're also dealing Mortal Wounds with Wake of Fire every battle round. And with Phoenix mobility, you can have a good target selection. So this makes Fire variant much better than Frost one in this City. And if you manage to get a Rebirth as well... Oh boy.

Ahah, the part about Yndrasta not being a named character is funny, but it will be fixed in the next FAQ most likely. Using Hurricanum as a casting buff piece for Lumineth units would be quite a smart idea, but it buffs casting only for Collegiate Arcane Wizards. However Hurricanum itself gets +2 to casts here, so giving it a wand is a good idea. As the build itself... well, you do have a bit of everything and an aura of +1 to hit, which will be crucial for missile pieces. That aura has quite a small radious however, and you do want Hurricanum to be in range for shooting and casting. Don't forget that now you can add some core or battlepack batalions in your build for free and get some nice bonuses from them.

So, while we wait for FAQ on overwatch, it seems that due to 6.1 rule and warscrolls precedence over core rules, by RAW Sisters and Handgunners can Unleash Hell every time anyone charges near them. While it's unclear, if you can use actual UH CA only before the first overwatch gets triggered or at any time, I've decided to do some theorycrafting just for fun. Enter 3.0 Handgunners. For the cost their damage is quite low (Irondrakes do ~30% more damage base and can be buffed much better), so their viability boils down to 2 strategies - MSU units with Long Rifles acting as pseudo Sentinels and blocks of 30 roleplaying as Prussian Musketeers. Let's try the latter and see what we can do. Save Handgunners attack without moving or double overwatch Handgunners double overwatch with Hurricanum Handgunners shooting with General CA Handgunners double overwatch with General CA Handgunners double overwatch with General and Hurricanum 2+ 4.59 6.89 5.74 8.61 11.48 3+ 6.89 10.33 8.61 12.92 17.22 4+ 9.19 13.78 11.48 17.22 22.96 5+ 11.48 17.22 14.35 21.53 28.7 6+ 13.78 20.67 17.22 25.83 34.44 - 13.78 20.67 17.22 25.83 34.44 First is simply how much damage Handgunners can do with a single unbuffed volley while standing still. Their double overwatch on 5+/3+ does the same damage as a single 3+/3+, so for a price of a single CP you can basically shoot another volley at approaching enemy. Solid, but not that impressive. Second example is when Handgunners are supported with Hurricanum. First of all, Handgunners only lose +1 to hit when moving, so Hurricanum support gives them complete freedom of movement (unless they face debuffs to hit of course), which is quite important for them. Second, their double overwatch starts hitting on 4+, giving them much more damage output when charged. Third and fourth examples are when Handgunners get supported with a General CA. For it they need to stay still all the time, so you either have to stay in your deployment zone or you can activate this strategy only turn 2. But for support resources invested it's the cheapest one, only 100 points and 1 CP. But if your Freeguild General get sniped, this strategy falls apart at your next Hero Phase. And investing in the backup General feels a bit too much. Now the last variant is the max possible stacking of to hit and to wound buffs for Handgunners close range overwatch. You get 330 points of support units near, you keep them still, you spend a CP on a General CA, and now every volley of them hits like in a third example, on a 3+/2+. And, considering that you hit everyone who's charging you every time they charge... well, it's would be an almost unbreakable caste. So, in my mind, the most optimal strategy would be to run 2x30 Handgunners with Hurricanum or General. First variant is very mobile, while second yields higher reward for less cost, if you manage to pull it off in time. Stacking them both yields much greater reward in overwatch department, but at the same time, it would be a immobile blob of 960 poins in the middle of the table. And yes, this is hard counter charge strategy, any decent shooting versus them, and Handgunners will start to drop like flies. P.S. While all this is quite overpowered right now, I fear that Handgunners will become completely obsolete if their Warscroll overwatch will be limited to 1 per turn together with Unleash hell. They are extremely reliant on it. And, well, if GW fixes their overwatch to work almost as it used to, all this math and theorycrafting will be quite relevant.

Yea, an obvious oversight for Living City and Tempest Eye, yet all is correct for Settler’s Gain and Har Kuron for some weird reason. Good thing that for now it only cancels Amplified Sorceries trait for Sylvaneth and some keyword buffs for CoS units from certain Stormcast warscrolls. By the way, even without CoS keyword, Sylvaneth and Kharadon units still count for 1 in 4 rule for Stormcast, correct?

Pretty much this. Some, including me, believe it's a full sequence, others believe it's getting any sort of effects from CA, so yea. And the warscroll overruling core rules part. FAQ within a month would be quite nice.

I agree about the intent here, but intent is a very flickle thing. Literally the next post after you thinks otherwise. So, while at friendly games you can come to the compromise, understanding rules RAW is important for now, until we get FAQ on this issue. And RAW it seems that Wascroll Unleash Hell is "broken" twice. Sure, the wording is the same, and there is logic behind such a statement. The problem, it's just a conjecture and RAW does not stop warscroll rule from triggering over and over again, unlike the batalion rule. Warscroll says that you receive unleash hell under those conditions, so sure, you just receive it over and over. I am hoping though that FAQ will come soon.

Well, I guess there is nothing more than can be said about 6.1 rule, but what do people think about The Red King point? Does wascroll simply overrides core rules here due to warscroll rules having priority? Does that mean that even if we're wrong about 6.1 rule, Sisters and Handgunners still have unlimited overwatches?

So, we actually have 2 rules going in our favour. And, untill FAQ drops, we can shoot anyone approaching as much as we want, haha. Just gotta use Unleash Hell first.

Yep, in the past couple hours I've reach such conlusions as well thanks to a question thread I've created (see below). The thing is, it's even worse. Right now, consensus on how to understand the rules RAW drifts to 2 conclusions: 1) Free Unleash hell or CA Unleash hell can only be used once per phase, never together. 2) Free Unleash hell can be used as many times as enemy units finish a charge near it, even when you in melee already (old overwatch restrictions have been removed), and you can also use UH CA on any unit on top. So it's either a huge nerf, or it's a huge buff. Both are not good I'd say x) Sort by date btw. To copy my edited post as well x) "You know, I was also thinking about that, just was not sure that this applies here. There is no, well, direct contradiction, like "every time a unit finishes move within 3" or "this unit can receive Unleash Hell multiple times through the use of this ability". "

EDIT: You know, I was also thinking about that, just was not sure that this applies here. There is no, well, direct contradiction, like "every time a unit finishes move within 3" or "this unit can receive Unleash Hell multiple times through the use of this ability".

So, I've sent GW a letter to aosfaq@gwplc.com . Now do we wait a month or half a year for a FAQ? x)

Also, Sisters of the Watch do Mortal wounds on a 6 to WOUND. Meaning, overwatch -1 to hit does actually affect them in a quite noticeable way, unlike Sentinels. So yea, I cannot see logic here.

But I bought Sisters just because I wanted to play Wood Elves Wanderers Archers with a semi competitive army qq

Already on it, almost finished a balanced email for AoSFAQ@gwplc.com , will see if this will lead to anything. May be to do a huge nerf to Handgunners and Sisters of the Watch out of the blue, may be just to standardize such rules across the warscrolls, who knows. Honestly, even intent here is not quite clear. And GW love to say that we should always follow rules RAW, but here even that is not quite possible.

If you consider this a Command ability being received, then you can't use it more than once per turn in any way. If you considered Command ability only as something that goes through the "Spend CP, issue command, receive command, resolve effects" sequence, this is not a Command ability, thus it can be triggered every time the conditions are met, AND with Unleash Hell CA on top.

Yes, the irony of units with overwatch getting much worse after changes, which gave everyone overwatch is not lost on me. Handgunners got +5 pts, Sisters got +20, their overwatch was made worse with -1 to hit AND being possible to use only once and only on one unit per phase, without a chance to stack with Unleash Hell CA. Which, if it was possible, would only bring their damage up to a long range overwatch anyway. This is a nerfhammer out of nowhere. Sisters might survive it, but Handgunners were very dependant on their overwatch. Buuut, as I was writing it, I've had some interesting thoughts in this thread. Sort by date, yea, I should have made just a usual thread, not a question one. As of now, consensus goes like this: 1) Free Unleash hell or CA Unleash hell both can be only used once per phase, never together. 2) Free Unleash hell can be used as many times as enemy units finish a charge near it, even when you in melee already (they've removed old overwatch restrictions), and you can also use UH CA on any unit on top. Yeeeep, no middle ground here, it's not looking pretty either way. Oh, there is also a thought, that any CA, that can be used without a command point being spend, is potentially not a used CA, and it can be used again, lol. I think I've opened a huge can of worms... sorry... Look up the question thread I've posted in this message. The more I try to understand the rules interation here, the more I see, that those "free" command abilities created a huge gap in the rules due to "using command abilities" being synonymous with "spend CP, issue, receive, resolve" sequence. If you're not following this sequence... this is not a command ability?

Or on Sisters themselfs, as they are not really using this CA, are they, lol? Unless you count the 6.1 rule about receiving CA and "unit can receive the Unleash Hell" as talking about receiving a command ability. But then it means that Sisters used the Unleash Hell command ability and... damn, we've got quite a logical ouroboros in here.

Oh god, lol, this... is also a possibility. There is no more "once per turn" restriction in place, even for a single unit, even when it's already in melee. Huh... now this may explain why sisters went up 20 points...

But at the same time, again, you're not using the CA sequence as 6.1, you're just "can receive the Unleash Hell command" conditionally. As I've said before, the main ussue is what "use" at the end of 6.1 mean? If it's about use of CA effects, then you are right. If "use" is about using the Command ability sequence, as it was worded in 6.1, then I am right. But it seems to me, when the rule itself is called "Using the command ability", and then explains, how exactly it should be used...

Well, it's only one step, and it's a rule that more like modifies a CA sequence instead of ignoring a part of it, but... may be? But then it could mean that if you're not using a CA properly, so you can't use it at all?

Are you using it though? You use the effect, but you're not "Using the command ability" as it formulated in the 6.1 rule. You skip 2 steps, that means you're not doing it properly and you are not using the 6.1 rule, you're not using a CA. This line of thought is actually pretty interesting when it comes to a "do not spend a CP for this CA" rules btw. RAW it could possibly also mean unlimited uses of such CAs? Not sure.

Here's the problem, 6.1 in Core Book actually says "In addition, you cannot use the same command ability more than once in the same phase (even for different units). And, technically, you use the Unleash Hell ability on Sisters. The question here is what does "use the same command ability" mean here?... Oh god, I was so stupid. Of course it means the CA sequence! The whole freaking rule is called Using Command Abilities! And how do you use them? You spend a CP, issue, receive, yada, yada. If you do not do that sequence, you DO NOT USE A CA. The question about "Can you use both free and the usual Unleash Hell on the same unit in the same phase?" is actually still open though. The wording of the warscroll ability means that you "receive the CA", but at the same time you do not use the CA, so is it a real CA or not, lol?

If you take the rules extremely RAW, this is the way to go. At the same time, this would be quite a big and an incredibly stupid nerf if this is the case. You get a universal ability, that you can use once, and your overwatch units can use it only once for free, instead of always having it no matter what AND without -1 to hit penalty. AND they are made more expensive at the same time. IF this the case, at the very least Handgunners and Sisters should cost 95 and 160 respectfully with such a huge nerf. They were heavily balanced around their overwatch after all. As an owner of 40 commitioned painted Sisters of the Watch, I feel slightly depressed right now x)