Kugane

Evocators are a great unit to add in that case, you could even get some of the new easy to build stuff, a lord arcanum on gryph charger and some sequitors could synergize really well with the dracoth and prosecutors. The other stuff you have is also nice, but as far as I know not as optimal as the new stuff right now. Only the Celestant on Dracoth (vandus hammerhand) got a significant buff I believe.

Clip off the shoulder pad carefully and replaced it with a liberator shoulderpad and some green stuffing work for my "spare" primes. Also swap the head for some other stormcast head. You can buy both relatively cheap online. The stormcast knee will look like a prime's, but you can probably shave that off with a hobby knife and tiny cuts (I personally didn't bother with the knee armour and just left it there).

What is your overal gameplan/playstyle you wish to go for? I think 1 thing you can't go wrong with would be the comet endless spell. 15 liberators can pay for battleline tax, the celestant on dracoth can be run as a lord celestant and the lord relictor is also a nice addition to most armies. I guess given what you have, you should probably lean towards a melee army. I would suggest trying to get a hold of a lord arcanum and 3x 5 sequitors if you can though. You should be able to pick them up relatively cheap and they outclass liberators by quite a ton.

I would suggest bringing the cleansing phalanx battalion since your list is quite evocator and sequitor heavy. Rerolling failed hits after an empower is quite huge, especially when you already have 2x 10 sequitors you could potentially boost. I'm not sure if going anvils of heldenhammer is the way to go with this list, the problem is that ballistas count as a single unit and you cannot, for example, have 1 big unit of 3 ballistas, so the command point would pretty much only get you like 2 to 3 damage at 18" range when used on those. I think other stormhosts may give you more value in a melee-heavy list, but I haven't done any calculations on that, just pure speculation . What you could do is go hammers of sigmar and bring a gavriel for his charge CA.

I think the nerfing old SC stuff for new SC stuff will likely continue, but a lot of stuff got buffs though! On the plus side of things though, at least it is just a 150 euro waste (I have had 800 euro worth of stuff getting nerfed with GHB2017, I was super sour for months haha). If you resold the stuff you will likely have enough cash for the new soul wars stuff and probably enough bits to optimise them, but the hobby hours... Those are gone :(. I choose to exclusively convert everything nowadays barring some cool characters I keep as-is, same with most easy to build stuff. I do this so it can fulfil a counts-as role of other units if needed. Just make stuff look distinct and similar weapon options as other units. Like giving liberator swords to sequitors and doing a head swap to something else, combined with some bits here and there. They can count-as any sword & shield SC at that point. I have a necromancer who is also a battle mage and occasionally a chaos sorcerer for that matter, as well as a sorcerer who is ocassionaly a tidecaster, but also a vampire lord. If you make your stuff distinct enough and have similar paint schemes across armies, you can go quite far and don't have to worry so much about nerfs. There is only so many weapon options they can come up with after all. A distinct crossbow guy can be a xbow judicator, a hurricane raptor, but also a castigator with some imagination. Just take pictures for your army lists and make it clear with your opponent what is what and most importantly, keep it simple. You will be happier in the long run.

In my mind i was under the impression that his ability didnt stack. I remembered wrong. Sounds like a great tactic in that case! Especially evocators deal massive damage. If you can charge those in that would be great!

Really like the idea, but cogs do tend to get dispelled though :(. What is the % chance of getting a charge in without cogs?

Unless you face a horde army with 25mm bases that happen to pile in to your unit, I think it will be very difficult to get full value out of the axes. I think you are best off just going with the sword or hammer for consistent (and most of the time more) damage

How does the rend work for axes? I dont have the battletome with me and the app just shows a * with no description. I think you can get the model in range with 2 to 4 fighters easily considering base size. It will be rare to have more than 2 in range though... 1" limits its uses. Because of that I would assume grandhammers or swords will be better unless it has some massive rend.

I personally think the range is just too short, forcing you to deepstrike them way too close and easily getting charged the turn after, which will likely result in losing the unit entirely. You could however run the crossbow ones together with a unit of sequitors for example, and deepstrike the with the sequitors screening them for you and ready to charge next turn. They will still likely get shot off the table, but I think normal judicators with bows do too, so that doesn't make a huge difference in my opinion.

Ordinator doesn't become worth the points until you have at least 3 Ballistas as far as I know, and even then, the difference is minimal at best and limits you to having all ballistas clustered together. If you are mostly using the long range shots you might indeed be better off with judicators. A ballista deals about 1,1 damage at long range, or 2,2 damage at short range against a 4+ save target. Judicators aren't that far behind to the short range shot either, dealing about 2 damage per shot for a unit of 5, so about 1,29 damage per 100 points. So Judicators would be dealing more damage if you can't get your ballistas in 18" range easily. They are far less situational too :). I personally still prefer the ballistas though (love the looks of them).

At which range are you generally using your Ballista?

Lovely list! Indeed, did some calculations and you can pretty much delete problematic units turn 1. Even a Nagash can be gone in 1 turn it seems.

Have you considered running some screening units for your castigators? I think you could drop the judicators and get some liberators in, that way you can even save yourself 60 command points and go for a 4th wave of attacks on turn 2. If you fit in some evocators that can be even more insane tbh (which can also be used for screening if needed)

Sorry, missed your comment earlier :). I used a unit of 3 castigators and a unit of 5 judicators as a base and adjusted them to a similar points value. Castigators are better than Judis fully buffed, but hurricane raptors and ballistas in 18" range do slightly more damage for similar points and don't require buffs, which is pretty much 1CP you save as well. They are not useless, but they aren't the best in their role either. I personally wish castigators were battleline, if they were, they would be a good contender for judis. Somehow the way their damage looks like, being decent at what they do, but at the low end of the spectrum of ranged units, it just feels like the unit was meant to be battleline, but it was scrapped at a later point. Deepstriking a big unit of 18 can be a lot of fun though, but you won't be able to empower them in the same turn, which is the other flaw... They kind of have to be set up on the turn you want to use them already to be able to buff them. I wish setting up from the celestial realm occured in the hero phase for that reason, so you can at least buff the units that come down ><.

Adding up all the damage the hunters, ballista and castigator can do combined, you will end up with roughly 2 damage per 100 points spent for everything. This is including the hunter unit set up already and likely unable to do anything, so if you exclude that, it will be even lower. The extra CP and artifact is great, but I think more raptors or ballistas will give you more overall bang for your buck than to fit in castigators, your only real benefit would be the extra artifact, so unless you run a pure vanguard list, its a bit of a waste of points.

I am talking from a pure competitive setting and more of a small unit point of view. When there is a 3.7% for sequitors and 5.2% for evocators damage difference in a unit, it isn't much, however those numbers are alot more than what I consider irrelevant. 0.1% I would consider irrelevant or 0.5%, but not 5.2%. I don't know about you, but I have played plenty of games (not just in AOS of course) where 1 damage would have made a huge difference. Surely AOS is about having fun, and it won't make a huge differrence, but competitively if nearly half an army worth of points that isn't fighting optimally, I am sure it makes a difference.

They only deal 2.21 per 100 points in damage fully buffed without a soulstrike battalion, judicators 1.29 damage per 100p. So fully buffed they are indeed better, but they are not battleline like judicators and thats their big selling point. Raptors on the other hand are also not battleline and deal 2 to 2.4 damage per 100p unbuffed depending on the build, especially the hurricane outclass them in terms of damage because of that. And those 2 units are outclassed yet again by ballistas in 18" range (2.44 for unbuffed ballistas I think). So considering we need to invest so much to make castigators work, and they perform even worse in bigger units since the prime makes the unit semi good, it just makes it not worth it. Even when adding the soulstrike battalion you can buff them to insane damage, but when you add up all the unit tax and costs their damage combined is like 2 damage per 100p spent, again not efficients. Of course those are just small % differences, but I personally will just go with raptors for deepstrike and ballistas for regular deployment. Castigators are great to have units on the fiels to allow more expensive stuff to deepstrike though.

I agree. I also realize that GW despite saying they are a miniature company first and a game company second and dont have time to balance stuff, it is starting to be quite obvious that they balance stuff to push sales. It is a bit of a system where they force people to buy new stuff by making older stuff obsolete... or even make new stuff obsolete the moment you buy it. Like soul wars now: incomplete units are one thing, and can be fixed with supplement purchases, but it does irritate me that the sequitors and evocators for example are armed with their worst weapon options, it isnt a huge difference, but a difference nontheless. Newer players who buy into this stuff will have to replace their sequitors if they want to become competitive or, like I did, be able to convert them. I think this kind of move on GW side is intentional. I personally have been waiting for a viable stealth army that works with some guerilla tactics and I wish Vanguard would have been a faction of their own for that reason. With the new battletome, most vanguard stuff is now obsolete, the damage output just isnt enough compared to other stuff and we cannot create a damage bomb with palladors like Idoneth do with eels either.

It's not a huge increase, but against a target with a 4+ save grandstaves are on average about 1 damage more per 5 models, totaling you about 13 or so damage if I remember correctly when all attacks go through vs 12 damage with sword and stave. Not a huge difference on a 2k points scale, but if you are a minmaxer go for the grand staves

I think the new chamber stuff has a really nice aesthetic though and I am currently doing lots of conversions with the new models, but I personally would have preferred something like the sequitors just being liberators with a new chamber look and special rules coming from a chamber you take rather than an entirely new unit. Similar to how there are different looking space marines, whom essentially do the same thing, just look different.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but I have an approximate memory of what I calculated. Against a 4+ save unit you will deal roughly 7,5 wound damage on average on the top of my head for a unit of 3 palladors, this is both shooting and getting a charge of, about 2 W of that 7.5 Is shooting. So a good 4 wounds per 100 points spent *if you get all in combat*. This is where their strength lies. They have great mobility and decent damage output. Great for getting a turn 1 charge off or sneaking behind enemy lines with an aquilor. As for raptors. Long strike does about 2 damage unbuffed per 100p spent. Hurricane about 2.4 I believe with the +3 att after deep strike, making them slightly more powerful than empowered castigators and even ballistas which at 18 inch range do about 2,22 damage. Hurricane cannot move after that though, which limits them, but Aquilor can fix that. In my opinions hurricane raptors are great to deepstrike and shoot for that matter, but kind of a 1 trick pony. Realistically speaking though, a unit of sequitors gives you about 5 damage per 100 points spent per combat and enhanced weapons and evokers about 6 wound per 100 points spent. With the celestial realm being great for close deployment, you could do similar stuff with those units now, but only have a ~29ish% chance to get a charge of... And they cannot be empowered by evokes until the next turn either. in short: vanguard stuff is great to get a fast turn 1 semi consistent damage output. Newer stuff has to wait a turn before getting useful (barring the ballista and castigators). Unmoved hurricane deal more damage on average it seems, but castigators can have 2 rend, which is useful. The issue with castigated she remains being unable to empower them the turn they come down from the celestial realm and the command ability of the arcanum isn't enough. I forgot to add.... soulstrike brotherhood (is that the name?) if you aren't running aquilor, gives about 2 to 2,2 damage per 100 points spent adding everything up, but gives an extra artifact and command point. Not the greatest either since you need to deploy 1 of your hunter units which nerfs that 2 damage further.

Thank you very much!

A random question ~ If a Aquilor uses his command ability on a unit of Raptors that did not move during that movement phase and you re-deploy them elsewhere, do they count as having moved after that? Or do they still count as not moved and their bonusses apply?

Since we are on the blizzard topic: the original warcraft was originally designed for GW to be a warhammer RTS game or something. GW ended up cutting contract because in their opinion the game wasnt good enough for the GW brand or something, so the game makers changed names and places as well as some races and warcraft was born. I think there may still be some hate between GW and blizzard because of that. Idk if they ever sued blizz, I imagine they did. A lot of blizzard stuff takes inspiration from warhammer, probably the other way around too.