Mikosan

Translocation and dispel scrolls are good I agree, however, they don’t buff our units which I see most folks argue don’t have enough staying power or punch. It’s what made sequitors so good in the early days of AoS 2.0, they buffed themselves and could layer synergy with arcanum or evocators. Now even that doesn’t look so hot. The ranges on new stuff like abilities and buffs are enormous

Eh? I think one of SCE biggest weaknesses is the lack of quality synergy between units and heroes. Pretty much comes down to reroll 1's to hit(a lot of this) or +1 sv(which is limited to castellant lamp on one unit, or wholly within 9" staunch defender and you lose the option if you take any stormhosts) . A lot of average units in AoS can layer synergies and become very good. Our units have to function as is or with mild buffs on one unit here and there. Anvils allowing for hero phase attack/shoot being the notable exception and why most lists lean that way despite the obvious tax in losing access to staunch and picking useful items. This is of course just my opinion though.

Fake news. Only the first model you move from each unit that benefits from seeker of souls has to finish within 1/2 inch and nothing says you have to charge if within 12 inches.

Yeah I really don't get what they are seeing with his rules to merit 340 points. Have they really not noticed that nobody is taking him to events, like ever. Keeping him off the table in order to get a couple more attacks is just maddening to me. For 340 he should just get 6 attacks base and a 5++ save. Rend -3 and damage 3 was great 3 years ago but the game has moved on and 8 wounds with no save after save or MW protection is just a nut punch. Maybe come up with a whole new thing to replace the celestial realm power up too, it is just a dumb rule imo. I want him on the table, its why I bought and painted him up, lol. I let them know all this at length in the community survey but they didn't listen, I couldn't have been the only one. Having said all that, hands down my favorite SC model

It makes sense to me that with the abundance of character/unit options SCE have, they should have a whole slew of battleline if options. I mean the range of models is huge, opening up the army build options within the book can only lead to selling more models in my opinion.

My hope is some points changes: Morsarr-probably up to 180 Allopex- should drop, but even at 120 would they really be better than eels at 140-180? At 100 points I would load up on them but expect they will be 120 and still rarely seen Leviadon- same as Allopex needs a drop but probably won't drop enough to really be palatable, my guess is 380 down to 340 Eidolons- these are my absolute favorite models and in my mind should be 300-340 however that is a pretty big drop and I don't know if GW has ever lowered something that drastically before, so I expect the same 20-40 point drop putting them in the 360-400 range and still rarely seen Thralls- seem ok at 140 points with the discount for max unit size I guess Reavers- should go down 20 to 120 points Lotann- not sure points are going to help this lovely chap, needs a scroll rework because i have found him to be pretty terrible. My hope is that the Eidolons see an aggressive points drop as they seem like they could be a lynch pin for the whole army with their passive buffs to nearby units and abilities. My fear is that while eels go up a bit other things only see a modest 20 point drop leaving the army builds pretty much stuck in the same rut. As ever, I remain cautiously optimistic

I agree completely with all this, especially a way to make them battleline. Seems easy enough if you take a LC on dracoth. I remember Ben Johnson saying long ago that to the designers the extremis chamber didn't get a battleline option because in the lore they were brought in as devastating shock troops in times of great need. Of course that was then, nowadays they aren't all that devastating and an army full of them would lose the objective game hard. The tempestor nerf really bummed me out because they were my favorite aesthetically and the targeted -1 to hit debuff was strong, but far from broken. Would really like to see it go back given the breath weapon nerf on them and fulminators. I asked for all of this in great detail on the community survey Also that the Prime gets a better warscroll or goes down to 260-280. Come on GW make it happen!!

As a guy that invested a lot of money and time painting Dracoths(8) and a Templar(blue tac a shield on to make him a celestant) I couldn't agree more! I am still salty about the change to tempestors. They used to be such a great tool in a dracoth heavy army with the targeted -1 to hit debuff, not to mention the old MW breath weapon which doesn't seem so crazy these days. No reason to take them now over fulminators. While fulmi's aren't really bad, they have been completely surpassed by not only other units in the book, namely sequitors and evos( with sure charge the lower movement is irrelevant and body count is huge advantage in the objective game), but also new units in other books. In short, I think all the nerfs in the new book were totally unnecessary. Still wish there was a way to make them battleline, no way in todays game it would be anything close to OP, I mean compared to 4 units of 40 murder monks for skaven? Templar could still drop 60-80 pts in my opinion. He lacks the shield of the celestant so is in no way shape or form worth his 460 points in an era kicking out the MWs most armies bring to bear and sub 300 pt Verminlords! Bit of a rant, sorry, but had to get it off my chest, Lol

And Mr. Souza was the only one I am aware of that had dope list art lol Good luck with ETC Bill!

I initially struggled with this rule as well close to the beginning of this very thread and changed my mind about it being useless when I started thinking about it negating one wound a turn per LA that triggers when a model is slain. One less sequitor will die or one less wound on the sequitors that remain. It's not game breaking but it is annoying for your opponent to have to dedicate more resources in another turn as Richelieu said, where you can just do it again. 2 LA's make it even better. All that said, the characters to make it happen are not cheap so I doubt you will see many lists spamming the LA models, but who knows, negating 3 or 4 wounds would be fun!

I would much rather they drop the points of the older units than increase the points for sacrosanct units. Libs to 90 and pallys to the old elite price of 180 maybe? I don't feel like SC get many breaks on unit costs, a couple units may be 20pts undercosted but so many more are over by 20+, so I really don't want to see increases to new/good stuff. I already struggle to make effective balanced lists with enough bodies to cover objectives, grave sites, gnarl maws, etc... Which brings me to this: What does a balanced army look like with new book? Previously I tried to get a nice mix of shooting and melee power. Now with magic thrown in the mix I am having a hard time balancing everything to my liking. It's very likely it is just me as I am not a great list designer, lol. What do you guys think, can an effective army be had with a bit of everything(magic, combat, shooting) or is skewing to do one or two things well at the expense of the other the most effective way to go?

One-I always thought it was pretty clear, all shots had to be targeted at the same unit. Two- it said how long it lasted, whether the tempestors were alive or not after was irrelevant. Three-yeah it was nice , four-I still engaged the enemy, the dracoths were still doing possible D6 dmg and the old breath weapon was the bees knees while in combat so I always wanted them there! Now you will most likely eat a screen of chaff in front while the shooting unit pulls out of the aura range. If the new ability was a 12" bubble that made friendly units -1 to hit I would agree completely with your last statement. Sorry for being a negative nancy over here, I really do love the new book and a lot of the new stuff like scions allegiance, the spell lores and stormhosts , all the new models are fantastic. Just not thrilled about some of the warscroll changes, tempestors were my fav unit in the old book and as a slow painter, replacing my 4 tempestors before Nova at the end of August is going to be a scramble.

Yeah, thats what I was getting at. I guess I just don't get why they changed it, I doubt it was tearing up anyones meta, just a useful, cool ability that worked well in a Dracoth heavy list. Oh well, new edition-new army build, now what should take the place of those 440 points that just got freed up in my list?

I didn't think that is how the rule works though. I read it as you have to be within 12" of the enemy unit that is shooting, which means that a unit 13" away suffers no penalty. It reads to me like a passive debuff to enemy units not a passive buff to your own. I would love to be wrong though.

I would add Tempestors to the list of units that lost out. They were a relatively under rated unit that I always found a use for, now I just don't see the point. Taking the breath attack was OK but losing the targeted -1 to hit against melee was just too much. 12" aura that only works against shooting...just why? How are Evocators not better than old paladins? I still like protectors and they are arguably better in certain circumstances, but Evo's seem better than both Retris and Decimators at current points cost. Overall I think the book is fantastic in isolation, in the context of new NH though..... it really feels like they were pulling back on the reins for stormcast(spells that require a casting roll then another dice roll to do one mw comes to mind) while at the same time letting loose on the NH. Still can't wait to get games in. Also waiting for better players than me to figure out some stealth combos that I can shamelessly steal

Good ole' tempestos hammer (almost)never lets me down!

I agree. That will cost you a minimum of 540 points for 3 of the foot version though. The whole conversation does have me thinking more positively on the ability, so for that I do thank you?

It's actually way more useful on multi-wound units, because even with excess damage it still essentially negates one wound or more if you double up on Lord Arcanum. Using it to heal characters is so situational that it isn't really practical, great if it comes up, but really not something you can build a strategy around. Thats literally an extreme example that no one was talking about. In an age where not just models but whole units can be summoned to the board with a command point, keeping 1 battleline trooper alive and requiring two expensive characters to do it seems...meh. I actually like the idea of the rule more if I just think about it as an ability that negates one wound which triggers when a model is slain rather than returns a slain model, because most of the time it really won't return a model. The cost of the Arcanums are the real hindrance to multiple uses, but you are right, probably going to include multiple wizards anyway so maybe it ends up more useful than at first glance. I can't wait to try it out!

For some reason, I hadn’t even considered that! I really hope the chamber rules are good but spell lores could help justify some of these points costs too?

According to Ben Johnson the ability only works if the model/unit takes exactly the amount of wounds to be slain, otherwise the excess damage would just slay them again. I guess it could save a couple of wounds to a unit of dracoths if you are doubling up on it. Still not a great mechanic in my opinion...

I love the Tauralon model, might be skipping the Dracolines though. I also find the characters to be underwhelming especially at the points we have seen. Seems to be a theme with Stormcast outside of the Ballistas which are really good for the points. The spells are just not good in my opinion, and the 9" range on the Tauralon guys spell is a bit of a bummer. Feels like we are paying premium points for stuff that is kinda average rules wise(see celestant prime) Now in the interest of balancing my disappointment in the rules, Stormcast are my jam visually, so bring on Soul Wars Saturday!

All registered and signed up for the GT! It will be my first major GT and I am really looking forward to it

Just wanted to say thanks again Chuck, I had a blast talking Sigmar over a few beers with you! See you December 2nd in Ohio!

The shadowy female Stormcast character has me pretty excited, probably just a character release like the Veritant I'm thinking, which is just perfect. Everyone in my club keeps asking when I am going to start something other than stormcast, and I keep saying every time I get the itch they release some more SCE models I gotta have, lol

Yep, me too. I have some store credit I am now really happy I didn't spend last club day : )