Requizen

I've been musing a Vanguard Justicar as more of an MSU list. ~6 Longstrikes, 2x3 Hurricanes (or 3 and 6), dropping the Hurricanes in the middle of the board with the Birds to play distraction while the Longstrikes whittle down. But 6 without double shooting is just... very inefficient, even against a perfect enemy unit. If you're going Vanguard Justicar, it would only (imo) be worth it if you're going heavy Hurricane Raptors and just trying to play a midfield field of fire type list.

Like I said, if I stick with Anvilstrike (might need to for my next big tournament), I'm thinking of jumping to 2, 3, maybe even 4 units. There's lots of ways to get overwhelmed by fast melee, and we need all the slowdown we can get.

30" is not as safe as you might think when there's plenty of things that can move 18+" and still charge, or teleport and charge with rerolls, or charge with +multiple inches. The game is extremely fast right now, and even if you park at max range, you're not really as safe as you might think.

That doesn't particularly bother me, I already have a hard competitive army, I'm looking for something fun where I can be a midtable hero and feel good if I go 3-2 at best. Anyone kitbashed a Rogue Idol? I like the FW model but I'm wondering if I can make something similar without dropping that much for one big rock boi. Plus, you know, hobby time.

There's also the rounded TAC list: mostly Sacrosanct + some other things, mainly focusing on a 20-Sequitor Brick with Arcanum and Castellant, 3 dropping Ballistas + Ordinator, and 10-15 Evos for counterstrike. It doesn't have any really hard counters but also lacks a solid win condition. We've also seen some success with 6+ Dracovator star units, though that can be fairly fragile to counterstrike and has little to no way to deal with Gristlegore other than trying to table the rest of the army and ignoring the ASF General. As for Stardrake, I don't think the Les Martin Stardrake + 2x2 Fulmis is the way to go, I'm far more interested in Stardrake + scoring bodies in Sequitors and Skinks. Either way, I think GHB19 will be a big shift for Stormcast, any point changes will change how we approach list building.

Like I said, there's likely a solid variant after some tweaking and what not. More Aetherwings could mitigate the alpha strike issue, and a swap towards a brick unit could help as well. But Alpha lists will always be strong against this sort of thing.

It's less about the results and more about how I got there. I did beat DoK along the way, but it was his first event and I was simply taking advantage of his executions along with some luck. He killed my Longstrikes on Turn 2 with little to no issue, and then I only won because I made some longbomb charges with the Evos, got the Double Turn, and he messed up positioning for Knife to the Heart. Also if he was HaggNar for the extra durability, I wouldn't have done nearly as much damage. I beat a mixed Order gunline with 40 Arkanauts, but I should have lost. I had no way to chew through that many bodies and he tabled me by the end, but I only won because I snuck past him to burn Better Part of Valor objectives and won immediately despite getting tabled the turn after. There were too many dice and bodies for me to win if it was any other mission. My two losses were against "meta" lists. Gristlegore and Bestigor/Enlightened Beasts of Chaos (similar to the popular Tzaangor/Enlightened Tzeentch build), and I was on the back foot every step of the way until I fell. Anvilstrike, or at least the way I run it, does not have a real answer to a uber-killy melee unit that gets into your lines on Turn 1, especially when they get the Double. If there are two such units, as there often are at the moment, it's an even more difficult ladder to climb. I think I could have won all my games - if I made no mistakes and got all the luck I needed. Anvilstrike is very strong but so unforgiving that it can feel very frustrating to play. I don't want to insinuate that my opponents are bad players, since indeed I knew many of them and they were extremely good players, but their armies are much more straightforward and resilient to missteps. There's plenty to be said about playing a very technical list and overcoming adversity through proper play, but it can feel very frustrating when people are receiving much better results with lists that require far less precision. Again, that isn't a knock to any of my opponents, but just a statement of the state of the army I have been playing.

Went to a local 2 dayer, 3-2 with Anvilstrike. Very depressing after a good showing at Adepticon. The meta is just so fast and killy right now that if you don't have lots of redundancy and/or disruption, the game is really on a knife's edge. Anvilstrike can probably still hang with some tweaks, and I probably could have won both of those games had my opponents not gotten the double turn... but I dunno, it always felt like I was on the back foot even in the games I won. Bestigors, Enlightened, Witch Aelves, Morathi, FEC - all can get across the board reliably on T1 unless you backline most of the army, and even then you're not safe if they get a double (and they will since they outdrop you 99% of the time). I lost my Longstrike unit in four of the games, even with Aetherwings to block. I'll try Anvilstrike with more bodies and shutdown - maybe trading some units for extra Aetherwings is apropos. Swapping the 10 Evocators + Heraldor for 20 Sequitors + Castellant takes a lot of teeth out, but it also gives a harder frontline that can help to soak a charge or two and still isn't too bad at hitting back. Going for a more castle approach to the list, though the damage output of 10 Evos is just nothing to scoff at. I was also looking at the lists I ran against and thinking about how Gav would do against it. I think the Daughters matchup wouldn't be too bad - just my own 10 man unit was able to boop of 30 Witch Aelves per charge fairly reliably (though they were Khailebron rather than Hagg-Nar), and once the bodies are down, Morathi herself isn't super terrifying. FEC and LoN are still horrid for Gav since they'll just blob out Ghouls and countercharge with monsters. BoC/Tzeentch speed melee would depend heavily on mission and positioning. Honestly I'm leaning towards Ignax Stardrake. There's so many horde-heavy armies in the game with a smattering of MWs. Grimghasts, Gobbos, Bestigors, Ghouls, Witch Aelves, Plague Monks - all of them bounce off him. I would go for Smouldering Helm, but Terrorgheist Maws and WLCs are still in the game, as are Endless Spells, so Ignax is probably necessary most of the time. I still feel Shootcast should be the way we build, since it spoilers a lot of things and we're one of the few armies that can really do shooting well... it's just so flimsy due to points. Our weakness is already bodies and when someone can just chuck 90 Aelves, or 60 Bestigors, or 60 Tzaangors, or 120 Plague Monks, etc into it, without something like Sequitors to block it up it's a bit rough. Aetherwings are great but they basically stop 1 charge per unit, which is great against slower armies that you can pick off but nothing against 2+ units in your DZ at the bottom of 1. Maybe I'm just a bit salty at my own performance, but it just felt like the meta has shifted so hard that SCE need to refocus to deal with it. Luckily, we're an army with a dozen different possible builds and will never be out of the meta just due to variety, but it can be frustrating to see the build you've worked hard on suddenly lose viability.

Prosecutors are... Fine. If you have 100 points and want some extra speed, you could do a lot worse. Javelins for shooting are usually the way to go. Non-Hero Cavalry is something like: Dracolines with Support Heroes > Dracoths with support > Dracolines without support > Dracoths without support > Palladors

There were rumors that everyhing FEC/Skaven and later was built around a different power scale, so AoS2 books released prior will see big price drops in the next GHB to be on a similar level. I don't know if that's true, or how it would affect SCE in any case, but I wouldn't be surprised to see pre-Sacrosanct units get a drop in points. Edit: Also WHERE ARE MY BATTLELINE DRACOLINES

I think this only works if you're talking about one person with a full set of everything playing host. In Magic the Gathering there's a format called "Cube", where one has a collection of 360+ cards that are used for drafts. Players curate their cube and then bring them to a game night or event and draft off of them. I believe something similar could be used for Underworlds - with the only caveat being that you would have to sort of do 3 different drafts, one for Upgrades, one for Gambits, and one for Objectives, otherwise you could easily end up with illegal decks. That aside, it could be a fun way to play with different deck constructions and see play for underutilized cards. I think it might look something like this: Underworlds Cube: for 4 players Select 12 Factions, 80 Neutral Objectives, 80 Neutral Gambits, 80 Neutral Upgrades, 5 of each Objective/Gambit/Upgrade, Faction Specific per faction. Step one: draft factions. Separate the factions into four stacks of three (face down). Each player selects one Faction from a stack and then passes them, repeating until each player has 3 factions. Players then reveal which faction they will play simultaneously. Players gain access to their limited Faction Specific cards. Step two: Draft Cards. Separate the Objectives into 4 stacks of 20. Each player picks a card from their stack and then passes it to the next player, until all players have 20 Objectives. Repeat this process for Gambits and Upgrades. Step three: Deck building. Each player builds an Objective and Power Deck, using their Drafted Cards and Faction Cards. Play games! Curate the cards and factions involved to be interesting. Maybe no BAR or other currently very popular cards such as Hidden Paths or Inspiration Strikes. This gives you the capability to see cards that otherwise wouldn't see play and end up with crazy situations. ...Actually I might formalize this into a document and try to make some cube setups later this week. Would be cool to see something like this catch on.

Yeah, Vanguard in general is overpriced for what you get. GW assumed that trading damage for speed would be worth the price, but in practice fast, elite, low damage units are pretty terrible unless they have something else going for them such as debuffs or ultimate tankiness. Instead, you just have a small army that is slightly quicker to get places and do nothing. As it stands, they're unlikely to change Warscrolls any time soon, but a flat 20-40 point drop across the board wouldn't be amiss, save for perhaps Aetherwings and Hurricanes, which are actually pretty good units in general.

Azyros for reroll 1s, at the very least. You could potentially go nuts and ally in a Hurricanum to buff them up as well, but mostly you're just looking for weight of dice. Remember that if you teleport, you don't count as having moved, so 9 shots per model is quite a bit, especially with 9 models in the units. Yes, I much prefer Longstrikes as well. The ability focus off important targets is what makes it work imo. However, if armies tend towards independent Hordes that don't particularly require Hero support (Plague Monks, for example), Longstrikes lose value and double shooting Hurricanes bump up. I have a friend who is bringing it to a pretty big event soon, so I want to see how he performs.

I will note that I've seen a few people playing Anvilstrike with Hurricane Raptors instead of Longstrikes. There's less point and click removal of Heroes and Monsters, but they are more efficient shooting against most units in the game. Translocate + 18" General bubble makes even a turn 1 Hero Phase shooting possible, and the extra points let you get more Aetherwings or Heroes.

What models are in the lot? No one can tell you what's good without knowing anything about it.

Yes, it does. The reaction window for Aggressive Defense is "During an Attack Action that targets a Friendly Fighter, before the dice are rolled" and the window for Lightning Whip is "After this fighter's attack action that succeeds", so you both React during different windows. Basically your opponent declares an attack -> Aggressive Defense before they roll -> They roll, presumably succeed, and react with Lightning Whip -> Attack is now complete, you can make your Aggressive Defense attack.

Pretty much everything in the Stormcast line is good. The question is just a bit too open to have an answer, you could run any variety of things and do fine unless you're going to tournaments. You'll get a range of models no matter what you do. Stormcast lists take a variety of Heroes (buffing foot Heroes, fighty mounted Heroes), a variety of Battleline (semi-chump Liberators, position-focused Judicators, elite Sequitors, tricky Hunters), variety of mounted Elites (linebreaker Fulminators, hit and run Palladors, charge forward Dracolines), varied melee foot Elites (mostly Evocators, but Paladins are still viable as well, shooting Elites from Raptors), and Aetherwings because Birbs. What kind of list are you looking for? Shooting focused, melee focused, or mixed? Hyper-elite or semi-elite? Punchy Heroes or supporting Heroes? Stormcast are flexible enough that there's no one straightforward way to build a list.

Got in a couple practice games last night. I think these guys are super strong, at least in many matchups. With some reasonable Score Immediately cards, you can inspire everyone pretty quickly and then just play zoning game. Tundrik is such a beast himself, tanky as all get out and a solid shooting attack, with just a couple upgrades he can go from "solid ranged threat" to "absolute terror".

It's Underworlds but a video game. They're committed to making it as close to possible to the board game, from their own mouths. I've been hanging out in their Discord and seeing what information I can glean but obviously they're still in the early stages. I'm very excited. I'll continue to buy physical releases but this is great for a number of reasons. It lets me get non-Tabletop friends to try the game, lets me play with people at any time over long distances (without fussing with TTS which I'm not super crazy about), and let's me quickly get reps of the game in when I feel like playing but not going out. I can see people enjoying one and not the other for their own purposes, but I think there's room in my life for both, kind of like how many of my friends play MTG and MTG:Arena (though there is some overlap in purchases there).

20 more is occasionally quite difficult to fit into a tight list, and while they both can Translocate, the Relictor's base abilities (-1 hit or heal friendly) is extremely useful, potentially more than the unbind depending on the opponent. Both are very worthwhile, and the Veritant bringing birdpuppy is solid too.

Base set Nightvault or Shadespire? They're pretty similar but some different cards. You're a bit limited and will be more or less forced to play Objective focused, but Godsworn can do that at least ok. Assuming Nightvault, you could try something like this: https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,N175,N180,N181,N183,N306,N330,N331,N332,N333,N334,N374,N185,N189,N192,N193,N409,N414,N446,N469,N454,N460,N194,N196,N197,N198,N202,N475,N504,N506,N521,N550,N178 Hm, I would say you very much could. Taking Damage is the normal way to be Taken out of Action, but they are not necessarily the same thing.

Their site says that there will be free card releases with "Extra Warband DLC expansions". That leads me to believe everyone will get all Universal cards and then just buy the Warbands you are interested in playing. I think that's probably the best split for "good for the devs" vs "good for the consumer". Obviously we would love the game to just be free, but that's really not sustainable without some sort of things like cosmetics or whatever. I'll be playing and perhaps streaming as soon as I get my Early Access

This is the thread for discussing Ylthari's Guardians, I have created a new thread to discuss potential rotations:

This has come up in a few different threads and on other places online, so let's chat about set rotations and formats for a bit: What is a format? Formats are different ways to play the game, though most people stick to the "main supported" format. Underworlds already has several formats: Matched Play (with Banned and Restricted Lists and Best of 3 format), Open Play (general, no restrictions), Multiplayer, Katophrane Artifact (King of the Hill style included in Shadespire book), and Glass-Mad Gargant (PvE with backstabbing, introduced in White Dwarf). While many people don't think of Formats when talking about Underworlds, that's because most people play Open or Matched, with the other formats coming up fairly regularly. Open and Matched generally see the same types of decks (Matched Play likely shifting a bit more with meta if you keep up with such things), while Multiplayer and Gargant will often require specific decks to perform a bit better. What is a set rotation? In living card games (card games that get new cards released over time rather than one-offs), a rotation is when the company dictates that specific cards will no longer be used in a format. For instance, Hearthstone (a digital card game) releases 3 sets per year and has two Formats, Standard and Wild. In Standard, only cards from sets released this year and last year will be allowed, so right now only 2018 cards and 2019 cards are in play. Magic the Gathering does similar rotations for their Standard format, but also has Modern, a format that goes even further back. Rotations do not affect all Formats, unless the company decides they will. Generally speaking, they will maintain one format as the one they focus on balancing (generally the one that they support tournaments and events for) and that Format will have a rotation. Why do card games utilize set rotations? The reasons are manifold. The biggest three, I believe, are these: First, this allows the designers to pivot on their design and not be stuck with cards that are no longer part of their philosophy. Due to power creep and occasional oversights, you will often end up with a set from years ago that is on a completely different power level from the ones that are being printed currently. In Underworlds, you can see this with the BAR list - Of the cards on there, a large majority (26/32) are from Shadespire. There were many cards printed that were way ahead of the skew, that we can now look back on with 2 years of experience and wonder how they ever made it off the presses to begin with. Would a card like Time Trap or Great Concussion be printed now? Absolutely not, or at least not in the way they are currently worded. Second, it lowers barrier to entry. While not all players need to complete their collection or need everything to be able to netdeck, many players who play Card Games enjoy having full collections to be able to utilize all the cards they want, or simply to fill out their card binders. Once you pass the two or three year mark, this goes from "expensive" to "mortgage payment" for a new person looking to get into it. Especially for competitive players, when the competitive decks utilize cards from various sources. A rotation means that the $240 of Shadespire sets are no longer necessary to consider purchasing if you are playing in the Rotational Format. Third, it keeps the meta fresh. A game where cards always remain in play will have a very stale metagame, in that you will eventually find the best cards for a given deck and not change. There may be some variety as counterdecks crop up, but these are often finnicky and don't impact the meta in an overall way. If you do not rotate cards out of the game, then in order to keep competitive players buying new cards and trying new things, the company would have to power creep very hard and print cards that are stronger and stronger, which in essence would rotate out old sets anyways. By removing sets from a Format, you allow the space to print cards that may otherwise be overlooked, but now would be taken because there is no alternative. Even with BAR list, you see cards like Escalation, Trap, and Ready for Action in nearly every deck. If these were no longer choices, it would open up deckbuilding to new possibilities. What does a set rotation for Underworlds look like? Truthfully, nobody knows, and it could be some time before we hear word of it. Many people (including myself) believe it will happen with the next "collection" after Nightvault, and will see cards from Shadespire removed from the Matched Play Format. 2 Years is the general rotation window you see for many games, including Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone, which are two of the frontrunners for CCGs on the market. Models and Boards are one of the things that separate Underworlds from those games, however. Many people agree that Universal cards will see a rotation, but what that means for Warbands and their Faction Cards is another question entirely. I think that is something that it is best not to ponder too much on, as there are many ways this could be handled and we won't know which will be chosen until it's announced. The two most likely are that Shadespire Warbands will rotate out of Matched Play completely, or that they will be allowed with their Faction Cards but not the Universal Cards that come with their set. I would not make any assumptions at this juncture, however. Why is my stuff getting invalidated? I paid money for it, shouldn't I always have it available? First, you will have it available! No one is going to force you to shelve them for good, or to shred your cards. It is highly likely that any set rotation will only affect Matched Play. To once again draw parallels (as I'm sure GW will as well), Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering both have formats which allow you to utilize cards that have rotated out of Standard. For Underworlds, this is Open Play at the minimum, and will also likely include Multiplayer and any other format that is not focused on by the balance team. Now what your local group plays may cause difficulties here. If they only want to focus on Matched Play and will not be building decks that include previous sets, you should check with them in advance to see if they are ok with you continuing to utilize cards that have rotated out of play. I would assume that most people would be fine with it, though of course there is the off chance that they are Tournament Players (not that that's a bad thing, I'm one myself) and will shirk any experience that is outside Matched. This is something that would need to be resolved interpersonally, obviously. Though the main point being, if your game experience involves anything outside tournaments/events, there should be no problems involving using old sets. Many of the more popular Magic the Gathering formats (Commander and Two Headed Giant, for example) do not require Standard Rotation cards at all! Why should I be forced to buy more if I do want to go to tournaments? I'm not competitive, but that's just where I play. This is a very valid concern, of course. There are a lot of people in both Underworlds and AoS that only get out to 1 dayers or big events like Adepticon that already get frustrated because they're not "keeping up" and it shows in more competitive environments. Rotations can be extra annoying for these types of people because they don't get enough time to play the collection they already have, let alone buy new things to keep up with the rotation. Someone who plays once a month or once every two months is going to be quite upset that the things they purchased and barely got to use are going to rotate out. Sadly, there isn't really a good answer for those types of players. Set rotations, as pointed above, are necessary or at least extremely helpful to keep the game alive and flowing for most players. There is the hope that people will run Open Play events often once the sets rotate, allowing people to utilize old cards. Stores that run Magic the Gathering events will run Legacy formats, which is analogous to Open Play and allows anything to be used (with some bans). If the set rotation and Format affects you in this way, just ask your Warhammer store or FLGS to run an event in a Format that best fits you. It's more than likely that they'll do their best to accommodate you - after all, they want people in seats and wallets out at their store! Is there any hard proof that GW will implement Set Rotations into Underworlds? Hard proof? No, but the signs are currently there. At Adepticon during the Grand Clash, GW employees put out a survey asking various things about Underwolrds, one of which was whether you wanted to see rotations and formats included in the game. The implementation of the BAR list shows that GW is aware that at least a handful of the cards released in Shadespire are problematic and need banning or limiting. Rotational Formats are the next things often implemented to combat these types of issues. Logically looking at the cards released in Nightvault, we see cards that are straight reprints (Tainted Vitality <-> Lifesurge) and cards that have similar effects, but at a different power level (Spoils of Battle <-> Ghoulish Pact, or Incredible Strength <-> Gloryseeker). This leads one to believe that they have cards that they would like to keep in an upcoming rotation, but have gone about balancing them differently to make up for things that may have been too strong previously. Conclusion I think (and many others agree) that it is highly likely that a Rotational Format is coming. But don't panic! This is likely very good for the game, and additionally most casual players won't even notice a difference unless their play group forces it on them. If you have further concerns, let's discuss them in this thread and hopefully we can alleviate apprehension and create a more positive outlook on the matter.

Not the place to talk about it, but first, nobody knows what the rotation will look like, and second, nothing prevents you from playing with whatever you want at club night, likely the format will only be for tournaments/events.