PJetski

Incorrect, Azyrite Halo works on all attacks not just melee. It's there to put on my 0+ Save Protectors to help deal damage to high volume melee attackers. I'll mostly be casting Mystic Shield instead. Gardus gives everyone a 5+ Ward, so the Amulet is only beneficial if the Tauralon is out on his own. That's got some value, but it's a decision that will be made after playtesting. I disagree, he is more worthwhile than he ever was in 2nd edition. Comet Trail is great and he is a cheap 12" 3+ flying MONSTER HERO that also casts a spell while potentially buffing your whole army. He is a "Jack of all trades, master of none" type of unit, but in a good way Here's my $0.02 on this topic Sequitors are worse, but only because of their price. They need to drop down to 130 points to compete with Vindictors. Evocators on Dracolines are better. They deal more damage with Lightning Arc but lost 2" range on Grandstaves so they aren't good in 1x6. They're fine to run in 1x3 or 2x3 because they can buff Castigators and Ballistas with Empower when they're not engaging in melee, and they have the mobility to break out a castle formation to contest objectives. Evocators are strictly worse, and now compete with many good PALADIN units that do the same role. Castigators went from garbage to usable. Probably the biggest improvement in the whole book. Incantor is worse, but still has a dispel scroll so you put 1 in every list Ballista seem better. Single shot is good, rapid fire is a bit worse. Overall a net benefit - we have many other sources of good 18" shooting. Ordinator is slightly better. Exorcist is much better, but overpriced Arcanum on foot is worse. Arcanum on Dracoline about the same. Arcanum on Tauralon is much more useful. Arcanum on GC is about the same.

God damnit GW Everyone please email GW and ask about this AoSFAQ@gwplc.com

Here's my second attempt Hallowstrike - Hallowed Knights / Scions Gardus Incantor (Azyrite Halo) Lord-Relictor (Translocation, CT: Reroll prayers, Arcane Tome: Celestial Blades) Lord-Arcanum on Tauralon (Chain Lightning, Mount: Celestial Instincts) 5x Liberators 5x Liberators 5x Liberators 10x Protectors (Unleash Thy Hatred) 6x Longstrikes (Thunderous Volley) 1990/2000 Need Warlord battalion for the 2nd Holy Command Was torn between Tauralon or something like Castigators x6 + Aetherwings, or an Endless Spell like Geminids/Shackles/Lifeswarm. Decided on the Tauralon for his speed, synergy with Saintly Assault, +1 Hit boost, Mount Trait, and MONSTER.

No, any ability that rolls a dice to ignore a wound for any reason counts as a Ward Any ability that transfers a wound can't be used alongside a Ward

Anvilstrike is dead Long live Hallowedstrike Gardus Yndrasta Knight-Incantor (Azyrite Halo) Lord-Relictor (General: High Priest, Translocation, Arcane Tome: Celestial Blades) 6x Longstrike Raptors 10x Protectors (4x Starsoul) 5x Vindictors 5x Liberators 5x Liberators 2000/2000 Need a Warlord battalion to get both Unleash Thy Hatred and Thunderbolt Volley holy commands Not 100% sure about Yndrasta but her revive seems really good Edit: Made some errors in points, will fix

Krondys uses his spell to reduce enemy save rolls by 1 Ally Skink Starseer casts Control Fate to reduce enemy save rolls by 1 Lord-Arcanum casts Geminids (re-rolling with command trait) and moves it an extra 6" to prevent enemy from using All Out Defence Every weapon is now effectively +3 Rend against that target

Castellant Warding Lantern stacks with Mystic Shield, Finest Hour, and All Out Defence. It also stacks with another Castellant's Warding Lantern...

They did the mash The Celestial MONSTER mash Celestial Vindicators - Scions Knight-Draconis (General: Master of the Celestial Menagerie, Amulet of Destiny) Tauralon (Spell: Celestial Blades) Lord-Castellant (Arcane Tome: Celestial Blades) Knight-Incantor (Spell: Azyrite Halo) 6 Stormdrake Guard 5x Judicators (Crossbows) 5x Vindictors Holy Command: Final Thunderstrike (combos with Cycle of the Storm) 1995/2000 Need to take a Warlord battalion to make this work 6 Drakes with +3 to saves (Castellant + Mystic Shield, AOD), +1 Hit (Tauralon, AOA), Halo to reflect, +1 Wound (Celestial Blades), and exploding hit6. Enemy melee attacks have -1 to wound most of your list. If they kill the Draconis you can use Final Thunderstrike and Cycle of the Storm to roll 24 dice and do mortals on 5+ to something within 1".

Yes

10 Protectors with 4 Starsoul Maces do ~7 mortals and ~9 damage to 3+ saves every combat phase Unleash Thy Hatred doubles the mortal wounds from ~7 to ~14 (!) and increases the Glaive damage from 9 to 11 If you play Knights Excelsior you can take 15 Protectors with 6 Starsoul maces. These do 10 mortal wounds every combat phase, or 20 with UTH active (!!) and 14/16 damage from the Glaives They are also 3 wounds each with a constant 2+ save Protectors slap

6 Annihilators with Grandhammers using Unleash Thy Hatred will do an average of ~17 wounds to a 2+/5+ in one turn If you can give them +1 hit their damage goes over 20

Annihilators Dropping Gardus into play next to Stormdrakes/Dracoths Protecting our units from shooting alpha strikes

Leaf scabbard? I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned Kurnothi yet

I think we're seeing different results because I'm not testing against 4+ saves... I'm much more concerned with efficacy vs 3+ saves and 2+ saves with 5+ wards; Rend-2 with some mortal wounds is much more valuable than Rend-1 in those scenarios. The Drake breath attack is strictly better than Dracoths, but on average the breath only does ~2 mortal wounds per model per volley over the Dracoths ~1 mortal wound. The 2 extra mortal wounds per shooting phase makes them slightly edge out Concussors in terms of damage in a single turn, but the Concussors do more if you have multiple combat phases (like in a typical round, or if your opponent wins priority). The difference becomes quite meaningful when you get 4 drakes breathing twice per turn, which is why I really like the Draconis + 1x4 Drake core. It seems like Stormdrakes cost more points purely for defense and utility, and that's fine. Again, my point isn't that Stormdrakes are a bad unit but that they're not the Uberunit that does everything the best and you shouldn't sell the rest of your Stormcast to buy more Stormdrakes like some players seem to think.

Rerolling Translocation or Geminids is pretty good, too

It's all about list building. I think Ballistas fit very easily into many kinds of lists, while the Judicator/Raptor kill squad is more niche. Judicators/Raptors are really good at killing something on the first turn with Thunderous Volley, but you may want to use a different Holy Command (like giving PALADINS +1 Attack, really strong with 15x Protectors) and you may not want to invest into getting more Enhancements. You can't use TV if your unit is in reserve with Scions, and it costs a Command Point. They cost 600/480 points so it's not always an obvious choice to slam them into your list. After you kill something with Thunderous Volley you're left with an inefficient and immobile shooting unit that needs protection. In the case of 6 Raptors, they're also very fragile (only 12 wounds). They need a screen, and if you invest heavily into elite units like Stormdrakes you won't have many bodies around to keep to protect your shooting core. Ballistas are 9 wounds for 140 points and will put out the same 2+/2+ Rend-3 shots every turn. They're cheap enough that you can fit them into many lists and they don't require any traits to be effective. I think all 3 units (Bow Judicators, Longstrikes, Ballista) are S tier for their own reasons.

Using the Blades offers more consistent damage but tips the value judgement further away from Drakes as hammer unit. They are a good anvil that can do significant damage, but they're not our best damage dealer. Having to take the Menagerie Command Trait is an opportunity cost, because you give up another taking another Command Trait. The Knight-Draconis is support. He is not worth 255 points without at least 1 unit of Stormdrakes in your list to take advantage of the breath double tap. Save buffs are essential to keep your heavy investment in drakes around for more than a turn. That is support. To clarify, my point is that Drakes are obviously good but building an entire list out of Drakes is inefficient.

Re: Stormdrake Guard They're very good but I don't think they replace every unit in your army. They have a lot of great things going for them (9 wounds, MONSTER, 4+ spell ignore) but they don't deal spectacular melee damage. You really want to charge with Drakes, so if you get hit first you lose a lot of damage. With a lance and on the charge, Drakes still do less damage than Concussors do all the time. Fulminators on the charge seem to be our strongest hammer unit so far. Annihilators with Grandhammers are a huge impact and require little external support. There is huge variance in the breath attack - it can do up to 6 mortal wounds, but on average each model does less than 2 per volley. You need to bring a Draconis to smooth out the variance (and sometimes just to melt something with a ton of lucky mortals) and these points really start to add up. They are a 3+ MONSTER which is all the rage right now, but remember that they're not HERO units so you can't Heroic Recovery or Their Finest Hour with them. You need to invest in Mystic Shield and other such save bonuses, and if you bring more than one unit your opponent can focus fire down the ones you don't buff with save boosts. You need to put a lot of opportunity costs into making them worthwhile and I think that kind of deathstar playstyle has a lot of obvious weaknesses. They're great models. If you just want to spam dragons because dragons are cool, you're probably going to go minimum 3-2 because their stats are huge for their cost and many opponents still lose to alpha strikes even after 6 years of AOS. I think Draconis and 1x4 Drakes is going to be an excellent core to a competitive list, but going past that will probably be putting too many eggs in one basket. You still need bodies for objectives, shooting to tear down screens, and the right support.

Only works on SACROSANCT and REDEMEER but that means you can buff Castigators and Ballista

Just realized that Empower works on missile weapons. Very interesting

I don't think they are hot garbage. The problem with Castigators is that they don't particularly excel at anything - they don't have a specific niche. Castigators are more efficient than Ballista at 18" but don't have the versatility of switching to a 36" Rend-3 shot. Ballista are also the kind of unit that you want to bring in multiples because of the way they get buffed by an Ordinator, which doesn't leave a lot of room for Castigators on top of all that. 6 Castigators are better than 5 Bow Judicators... but you don't bring 5 Bow Judicators, you bring 10-15 and double tap them to delete something from 24" away on the first turn. Castigators can't do that. Castigators could be useful if there was some way to make them battleline, like if a Lord-Ordinator was your general. Maybe I'm wrong and there's some all-in shooting list that could use them well, but I don't see those lists as a viable option for trying to go 5-0 consistently. If we ever enter a DAEMON meta again Castigators shoot right up to S tier because they deal double damage to those. I'm working on a podcast right now and have moved Castigators up a few spots in the tier list after giving them more thought over the past few days.

Ballistae have their own niche as a Rend-3 D6 shot that can also rapid fire 2D6 with lower accuracy sometimes as needed Castigators should instead be compared to Judicators/Raptors instead, and in that comparison they are quite lacking due to range and lack of mortal wounds. No, we still have re-roll hit1 from the Divine Light prayer Allies could be a potential source of re-roll hit1/wound1. I'll be looking over the other order battletomes to see if I can find some

I'm not familiar. 90mm? 105mm? 120mm?

Has anyone confirmed the base size for chariots yet?

Lord-Relictor gets +1 to chanting You can make him your general and take a universal command to re-roll chanting. 2+ rerollable translocation is disgustingly good