Requizen

That's a bit open ended. Lots of lists can include either one, depending on what you want the rest of it to do. Karragon's Heat 1 list further up the page as a reasonably solid build for 6 Dracolines, and the old Stardrake + 2x2 Fulminators list is the most popular (just Google Les Martin Stardrake if you want an idea). But you could easily run them quite differently depending on what other options you want.

Fulminators are the only Dracothian Guard unit worth taking imo. Desolators and Concussors might be better with a point drop, and Tempestors are... fine but nothing special. Dracoline Evocators are strong and fast, but super expensive. A unit of 6 or maybe 9 is about the most you want to bring if you don't want to get tabled by high-damage enemies. They do really want support, however - they're fairly squishy on their own if they get caught out. Palladors are a cool screening/distraction unit but really lack enough hitting power to be worth bringing competitively. You can use them, but it's not really that great. Basically my feeling is that if you want to run a big ball of punchy that burns across the table and kills whatever it touches, go for Dracolines. If you want smaller, independently operating units that focus more on flanking and troubleshooting, ~2 units of Fulminators should do the trick.

Generally speaking, it's not worth the 100 extra points over the regular mounted ones, when that 100 can be put towards extra bodies or Endless Spells. But, it's not the worst unit in the book by far. He's a fairly solid counter-charge threat and depending on the Realm Spells can do some solid damage from a range. Overall he's a mediocre choice, but hanging out with, say, 20 Sequitors + Castellant + Heraldor, you can make a really solid wall that's hard to shift and has a fairly scary monster behind. Onwards to Glory only lets you retreat/run and still charge. Shooting is disallowed when you retreat or run, and nothing from the Heraldor overrides that rule, so no.

You don't need to have it in the Ability, the Move rules in Core cover it - Normal moves not within 3", Charge have to end 1/2" away, pile in only 3" towards closest. Any other type of move has no restrictions unless it says otherwise. Granted they should have a sentence that says something like "Other move types granted by abilities have no such restrictions", but it is pretty implicit in the rules how it works already.

Gotcha. In general, your list should do fine against it but you're not particularly favored. Gitz are really good at messing with melee through things like Fanatics, debuffs, and Netters, so you're not going to kill units that fast, but you'll survive a lot longer thanks to the blob + Castellant. Getting to the Heroes and killing them is how you beat armies like this. You can try to early kill them with Evocators dropping in with Scions, but that's risky. I would recommend getting a shooting unit or two in there, or some sort of ranged spell damage. If you can kill the Loonboss then the big blobs lose the MWs, so they're not as scary in combat. If you kill the Wizards, they can't buff as well. Removing one unit of Evocators lets you swap your Libs for Judicators and take a unit of Vanguard Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows. Alternatively, you could take a unit of Judicators and an Everblaze Comet, which will do really good work against his small Hero models.

There you go then, all good. You'd think if they had to FAQ it they would have printed it into future books to avoid confusion, but whatever.

Not true. The Delusion rule specifically states that "The delusion applies to all friendly FLESH-EATER COURTS units for the duration of the battle", and summoned units are friendly. So they gain access to it with no problem. Grand Court Keywords are different.

What were you running? There's plenty of Stormcast lists that'll smash all over that, and others that will roll over to it. Also 1000 points can be really screwy, the game isn't quite balanced around it the same way it's balanced around 2000.

Hm there's a clear difference there. This is AoS, everything is based off Keywords. Grand Hosts and Stormhosts grant Keywords to the army on your army list. The revived Stormcast units state to "set up an identical unit", which would identically have the same Keyword. Summoned units don't gain Keywords, but for Daemons and Seraphon, their abilities just work off the Warscroll keywords, so a new unit of Bloodletters would already have <Khorne> and therefore be fine from a rules perspective. When you summon a Flesh Eater Courts unit from a Command Ability, it does not apply the Keyword, and the Grand Courts rule states "All Flesh-Eater Courts units in your army gain that keyword", but does not state that summoned units gain it. The Summoning abilities state that the unit is "added to your army". So here's a question: when you choose a Grand Host, does it only add the Grand Host Keyword to the models in your list, or do Summoned units retroactively gain said Keyword? Is gaining the keyword a one-time thing that happens at list creation, or is it a passive effect that happens to any unit in the army, even when added during a battle? The wording "units in your army gain that keyword" is pretty ambiguous here, though I think the intent is for Summoned units to gain it as well.

Foot Evos would be bad if we didn't have Gav or shooting. A slow melee unit that has to walk 5" across the table is terrible. But, since we can either insta-charge them from Reserves or force the opponent to approach with our gunline, they're actually quite strong. From a numbers/rules perspective, once they're in they are pretty busted. The jazz hands is pretty hard to deal with as the game goes on, especially as you run out of screening units. My 10 kill more than their points worth in every game unless I ****** up, though I'm thinking of dropping the 5 man unit since it often doesn't pay dividends.

It's efficient with Gav, where you get in, murderize one unit with melee, and tag a second, smaller unit to zap with MWs. Without the charge bonus, getting that setup is way too situational.

To an extent, buffed Sequitors can take a serious beating before getting wiped. I crunched the numbers and even with attacking twice and rerolling Maw hits, the scary AGoTG that people are talking about kills like ~6 Sequitors even though it goes first and fights twice. Skaven WLCs can do serious damage to them, but there's not much they don't blast apart.

Thursday Musings: So speaking of big monsters, I'm once again looking at different list archetypes. One such archetype that we've seen in other armies lately is 2-4 big fighty Heroes, which pair exceptionally well into 3PoP/Duality. For Stormcast, our big Hero is obviously the Stardrake. But, he's not super killy - he does lots of incidental MWs but overall he's not instagibbing units in the way you might see AGoTG, VLoZD, Manger Squigs, Thundertusks, or Durthu accomplish. He's clearly more of an anvil/brick type unit that chips damage and locks things down to kill and outscore, which is how most of the modern Stardrake lists function. However, do we think we could accomplish a "fighty Hero" list with something like non-monster Cavalry Heroes? Dracoline/Gryph Charger Arcanums and Dracoth Celestants are fairly fighty for their points, though of course not as hitty as the abovementioned models. Lacking a Rend-2 or high volume melee weapon makes it hard to build around. Our closest comparison comes from the Celestant-Prime who is... contentiously fine overall, and far below the given examples defensively. His melee output is great, of course, but that's a hard sell for his downsides. I keep coming back to the Arcanum on Tauralon. For the points, quite defensive (Staunch + Ignax + Pinions, cast a defensive spell like Mystic Shield etc), so could be a mini-Drake in anvil effectiveness, of course without the MW reflect or various chip damage sources. The offensive output is only slightly better than the mounted versions (actually no better than the Dracoline on the charge), which is off-putting for taking one or multiple. Overall I think perhaps there's a list to be built where you take 3+ mounted Heroes and then back them with units that don't need babysitting. Many of our current lists revolve around Heroes sitting with the units behind - Castellants, Relictors, Heraldors, etc - rather than ones that are solid fighters by their own right. Perhaps some sort of MSU shooting/zoning list that thins down units which subsequently get slammed by Cavalry Heroes (and maybe a Prime?), then can play defensively by using the Heroes as a countercharge threat. Edit: First Pass Lord Celestant on Dracoth - General, Staunch, Ignax Lord Arcanum on Dracoline - Thunderstrike Celestant Prime Judicators - Bows Judicators - Bows Judicators - XBows Hurricane Raptors x3 Longstrike Raptors x6 Aetherwings Aetherwings Skinks Skinks 2000

Well do remember that Staunch + Ethereal is an anti-combo, since he can't benefit from both (though yes he can buff nearby dudes). Mathematically Staunch is better than Ethereal against Rend- and the same against Rend-1, then better if you get the Warding Lantern on him. Most of the game is Rend- or Rend-1, with only a few big things being -2. Current wisdom would say drop the Amulet for Ignax's Scales and then use the ranged abilities to kill anything with high Rend before he gets there.

Just looked this up, seems pretty interesting. Could be a nice build for a DoK army, shame it can't be popped into our own.

Hm, I still want to test it out. I agree that pure shooting (as in, nothing that can take or give a punch) is too limited, but I would still consider a list that's 70% shooting with some melee to back it up to still be "shooting focused". Even just 20 Sequitors with the proper Hero support (and maybe Skinks/Aetherwings to run interference) is generally enough to play the midfield and protect against any sort of threatening charge. After doing a lot of listwriting, I think there are more flexible builds, but the Longstrike/Evo Anvils army is by far the most threatening to many of the boogeyman builds (since it excels in dropping Heroes more than pretty much any other), except perhaps for an Anvils/Longstrike/Sequitor build that I want to toy with. 4 Ballista Ordinator is a close second but I think with Skaven Hordes, Gitmob Blobs, and Skellie Blobs, getting 18" away from the proper target is more difficult now than ever. Depends on what the armies were.

My only issue with Astral Templars from a shooting army perspective is that it's a complete waste if you go against a non-monster army. If you're going heavy shooting, the 6" extra move is neat but rarely going to make or break a game, and the Artifact and CA are both exceedingly mediocre. They're really solid for a mixed army where you're bringing Ballistas alongside Sequitors/Evocators, though. Anvils makes such an interesting conundrum for list building. As soon as you take more than a min sized shooting unit, you have to ask yourself if Anvils would be better for double tapping, especially Longstrikes and Bow Judis. IMO there are 3 styles of shooting list that I've rotated around: One big shooting unit, pretty much always Anvils. Judis, VWing Judis, or Longstrikes, with everything designed to protect them and get them positioned. MSU (Mutliple Small Units) shooting, ~6-8 shooting units that can operate fairly independently and spread out. ~3-5 MSU shooting units standing behind melee units such as Sequitors, Evos, or Paladins. Potentially the most well rounded, but generally deals middling ranged damage compared to the other two. I think the best ways to implement heavy shooting are Justicar Conclave with either 2x3 Hurricanes/1x6 Longstrike or 3x3 Hurricanes + other stuff, or Anvils Longstrikes, or just bombing in 3-4 Ballistas with some other ranged options alongside. Any other shooting styles seem a bit lacking in one place or another.

I think Skaven and Gitz will remain a bit higher, since they bring a lot of small Heroes and few if any Battalions. But yeah, it's rare at best.

9 beats a lot of non-Battalion armies, I would put many armies at ~10 drops on average. At any case, it's beating more than 14, though obviously it's doing nothing in regards to stuff that are sitting at 6 or less. Still, that list with the Vanguard Justicar is good nonetheless imo, the Battalion is fairly priced and having more Artifacts/CP is always worthwhile.

Oh true, but then should still be 2.33/2.78/3.22/3.66/3.66/3.66 rather than what's on there, which bumps up their numbers against 2+ to 4+ armor by a bit. Here's a first thought: Anvils Relictor - Translocation, Gryph Feather Charm Ordinator - Soulthief Incantor - General, Thundershock Incantor - Stormcaller(?) 5 Libs 5 Libs 15 Judis Ballista Ballista Ballista Prosecutors Prosecutors Prosecutors Skinks Vanguard Wing 2000/2000 12 Drops. Pretty MSU shooty other than the 15 Judis, but when I see "6s explode", my immediate thought is "big unit firing twice with Anvils". While you don't necessarily need to take full advantage of the Battalion rules... why not try it? It's been discussed in the thread before, this would be a pretty efficient shooting army. That said, it could go a bit less shooty, dropping the Ballistas in favor of a Sequitor blob like so: Anvils Arcanum - General, Azyrite Halo Relictor - Soulthief Incantor - Thundershock Castellant - [Artifact 2 (Lantern of the Tempest, Gryph Feather)] 5 Libs 15 Judis 20 Sequitors 3 Prosecutors 3 Prosecutors 3 Prosecutors Skinks Vanguard Wing 2000/2000 Now this runs fairly similar to the current Anvils setup, you just trade the Evocators for the Battalion, extra shooting, and Sequitor blob. Has similar downsides to the Longstrikes (if the Judis get hit they blow up), but they have more wounds and you have a stronger frontline to receive charges, not to mention faster spreading out/zoning options with the Prosecutors.

Yeah when in doubt, Skinks are often the answer. We do pretty much everything else quite well, but Skinks can give that little extra oomph when it comes to zoning and scoring.

Looks good on the Castigators and Prosecutors. I keep expecting Castigators to be better in general (relatively cheap Rend-2 is nothing to scoff at), but man they just kinda underperform, don't they? Prosecutors actually seem pretty reasonable. Maybe there's something to Vanguard Wing as a shooting list after all, 3 of them + a larger sized unit of Judis could put out some honest ranged damage and keep drops down. Worth testing. Crunching numbers on the Longstrikes, they're just off a bit, looks like it's not calculating the 2 MWs from 6s correctly. Should be 3.33/3.78/4.22/4.66/4.66/4.66, unless I'm crunching numbers wrong (2.67 * save + 2MW).

Here's what I'm starting with: Arcanum - General, Staunch, Azyrite Halo Castellant - Lantern of the Tempest Ordinator Incantor - Thundershock 20 Sequitors 5 Judis - Bows 5 Judis - Bows Ballista Ballista Ballista 3 Hurricane Raptors 3 Hurricane Raptors Aetherwings Aetherwings Geminids 2000/2000 You get 3 types of shooting, can work at a long range (Judis, Ballistas to an extent, Geminids) or up close (Hurricanes, Ballistas). 14 drops is a lot, of course, but that gives you 7 units up top, which will usually be Ballista x3/Ordi/Hurricanes x2/Aetherwings (or can leave one one Ballista on the table if you want more anti-charge). To get down on drops, maybe something like: Lord Celestant on Dracoth - General, Staunch, Ignax's Scales, Keen Clawed Lord Relictor - Translocation Knight Incantor - Thundershock, Mindlock Staff 5 Judis - Bows 5 Judis - Bows 5 Judis - XBows 6 Longstrike Raptors 3 Hurricane Raptors 3 Hurricane Raptors Aetherwings Aetherwings Aetherwings 10 Skinks 10 Skinks Shackles Vanguard Justicar Conclave 1990/2000 9 Drops is still not low, but better. Still 14 drops, so Hurricanes, XBows, and Birds up high. Longstrikes and Judis should be able to drop Heroes pretty reliably, while the XBows clear out units. Not sure on the Heroes - you don't particularly need the regular buffing heroes like Castellant or Heraldor, though an Azyros might not be amiss. I kind of like the Dracoth Celestant as a mini-combat piece. He's not clearing units by himself, but he's enough of a counter-charge threat to make them think twice, and he can move quick to clean up the last couple models after the bombardment. Edit: you could potentially make that second list Templars, give the Relictor the chump artifact and the Dracoth Ethereal Amulet - makes it better against Monsters but worse defensively.

Thanks! Just a note: it looks like your Prosecutor numbers are a smidge off (should be .88 wounds for the Prime, doesn't take into account Trident Rend), the Longstrikes don't seem to take into account the MWs on 6s (shifts the numbers a bit, especially against high Armor values), and it looks like you calculated for the Rend-2 on the Castigators, but it would be interesting to also have a row for the Reroll 1s (shifts the numbers for lower armor values). Obviously a bit hard to automate in Excel but worth noting. I've been musing a lot recently on the differences between our shooting units, so obviously the numbers are good to have offhand. I'm trying to figure out what a true shooting army would look like, and it's become quite obvious that each of our shooting units has a very distinct role, and it's hard to say any one is strictly better than another, though it doesn't look good for Castigators or Prosecutors in any case. Building a true shooting army is actually fairly hard. We don't seem to have the numbers to wipe units, especially hordes, with any sort of efficiency. Both varieties of Crossbows are pretty good at it, but also quite short ranged and fairly expensive. Ballistas seem best at dealing with small/midsized units, while Longstrikes are clearly the best at Hero hunting (small Heroes they crush, big monsters with Anvils). Bow Judicators actually strike me as odd - despite them being so popular, their strength mainly seems to come from their range and generalist nature. They don't really put out an insane amount of value for their points, but they're pretty solid at sitting back on objectives and still contributing to the fight. I'm still sure there's a shooting-focused list in here, and I think it'll be necessary in the coming months between FEC, Skaven, and the new Khorne book (terrified to see what buffs they give Bloodthirsters).

Where's that shooting efficiency chart at? I want to do some theorycrafting and can't remember what page it's on.