PJetski

I think it's an impossible standard because GW has shown us over the past 30 years that they are unwilling or unable to write a book where every unit is viable. It would be possible if an entirely different writing team was in charge of the rules and the FAQ - I am not going to waste any time thinking that GW will correct course now. I can't argue why your standards are the way they are, but I think you are setting an impossible standard that will always lead to disappointment. If you hold that standard then every battletome is bad, and then you have to contend with the fact that you are spending your time and money on a hobby/game where every single product they release is inadequate. Personally I wouldn't be able to enjoy this hobby if I viewed things this way. I agree that the allegiance abilities are not very exciting. In addition to "power creep" I'm also concerned about "interesting ability creep"; newer battletomes will almost certainly get much more engaging and interesting abilities than what we are seeing right now. However, potential future updates to the game don't make the battletome bad right now. There's a lot more to the book than just stormdrakes and raptors. Those units have huge threat ranges so they are easy to use, but they have low maximum damage - great against 18 wound MONSTER units, but not as good against 60 wounds of infantry. The metagame is already adapting. The Stormcast battletome as a whole has the tools to be adaptable to just about any kind of metagame... it all depends on the points. For example, Dracolines are not objectively bad; they are high volume attackers with a 12" move, natively re-roll charges, have no opportunity cost on losing shooting if they run & charge with Steadfast march, and can blast some mortal wounds after attacking, which is great for situations where you need to focus fire or split attacks across different units. However, they are inefficient compared to Dracoths because they are not Battleline, their Rend-1 attacks aren't very good against a high save meta, cohesion really messes up reinforcing them, and the 4+ Save feels like a liability. Would you play them if they cost 170 points like Gore-Gruntas? A Lord-Exorcist might not be viable right now, but his ability to stop revives on units within 9" is insanely strong against Fyreslayers and Soulblight. With a significant point drop and the right metagame (Nighthaunt?) he will see play. Right now elite Scions lists are really good because we still see a lot of big MONSTERS which are low effective wounds per point. These kinds of elite Scions lists don't have the body count to contest objectives and rely on wiping out the enemy to take their space. If we start seeing big blocks of Vulkite Berzerkers (30 Vulkites are really hard to kill) and Zombie hordes then things like Evocators and Stormkeep will become more enticing. If we see more MSU armies like Beasts of Chaos then Envoy of the Heavens becomes stronger. I don't think having a few bad units makes the whole book bad. It could have more interesting interactions but it's functional, competitive, and has the flexibility to be adaptable.

My point wasn't that we should ignore the bad units, just that we have a lot of viable units and can make a ton of different competitive tournament lists. If your criteria of success is "every warscroll has to be tournament viable" then every battletome is a failure. It's an impossible standard. If it's "my favourite units are bad" well I agree that sucks but it doesn't inherently make the battletome bad - there is a lot of good stuff in there

The book is not objectively bad. We have more viable units than some factions have warscrolls. At least 6 (arguably 7) of our 8 subfactions are viable picks. It sucks that we have bad Enhancements and a lot of our warscrolls aren't good enough to see play in tournaments, but many of them can be easily fixed with some point adjustments and/or battleline tags. For example, Evocators would be viable at 200pt and Dracolines would be viable at ~240, especially if they were Battleline (in Celestial Warbringers?). Sequitors would be viable at 130. Many of our heroes are massively overcosted and would see play with a 20-30pt drop. The game is too fast and lethal for Stormkeep allegiance to be viable (and Gargants are a hard counter) but that could change in GHB 2022 when we switch realms and with more armies being released that focus on infantry (Idoneth, Fyreslayers, Nighthaunt, DOK). My biggest concern is that it won't survive the inevitable battletome power creep, or that the universal enhancements will be gutted.

Which book doesn't? Also Prosecutors are far from useless

That is much weaker than I thought it was going to be

Remember when people thought the Stormcast 3.0 book was bad

Okay but all we care about is seeing if/how they changed High Tide and Forgotten Nightmares

They will almost certainly have the Single tag so they can't be reinforced

30 Vulkites in Hunters of the Heartland with Mystic Shield, AOD, and a 5+ Ward from Battlesmith are a 3+ Save ignoring Rend-1 (cant be Roared) and 90 effective wounds They also rally back on a 4+ Pretty hard to shift that

Hypothetically speaking what if Fyreslayers had a ton of bodyguard units and every subfaction could fight first? Man that sure would be a crazy army

Oh right, duh

Does that ever matter as long as unit champions can issue commands to their own unit?

Inspiring Presence is in the battleshock phase, Rally is in the hero phase If they spend a turn shooting your Battlesmith they won't be shooting your actual units. That's good for you. You are far too negative my dude

Everything you said is true with the 2nd edition battletome We are not talking about the 2nd edition battletome any more

They are not 100% melee It helps mitigate losses taken from shooting/magic It makes blocks of 30 Vulkites very interesting Historically Fyreslayers are very likely to kill anything they fight, and not get locked into combats

Can't wait to Rally back Stormdrakes on a 4+

Not really any different from the Stegadon spam that is possible with Thunder Lizard

If they lose Behemoth when they become Battleline in Lofnir, Auric Runesons on Magmadroths can be put in Battle Regiments and Hunters of the Heartland as Troops, but as a HERO they can still take Enhancements. Really interesting

Breath attack does literally nothing lmao good job GW and/or warhammer-community writers

New Stormkeep video going live today (10am EST) about how to counter Ironjawz!

There are a lot of " useless" units and enhancements (Vanquishers, Vigilors, Sequitors, all of the Command Traits, etc.) but overall it's not that bad. We have multiple viable shooting and melee hammers, many viable screening units, and a number of useful support heroes. Most of our subfactions are really good or at least useful. I would prefer if everything was viable, but I recognize that is probably an impossible standard with almost 80 warscrolls

Leviadons dont do enough damage to justify spamming them. A lot of their points are wrapped up in their support abilities.

Tauralon is objectively the best MONSTER in our book and I will die on this hill

Should be 2500 imo

I really like Blaze of Fury, should be really interesting for Magmadroths