Stormcast Eternals - are they good?

[Hi I'm Derek]

Made a new thread for discussion purposes cuz the topic is a wild tangent off the original.

Jan 31, 2020 12:39:03 GMT -5 Impulse said:

May I ask what issues you feel the book has? Bit irrelevant and I can certainly start a new thread if Shannon wants me to but I have 2000 pts of stormcast and I love their rules. Though I've never actually played a game with them so if you have some practical issues or anything, I'd love to hear it! (Since I'm only theorycrafting)

So I'll try to keep this as brief as possible, and also try to keep any unnecessary ranting to a minimum. And maths, I don't think it's necessary to create a huge essay full of maths unless people actually want to hash out unit performance by the numbers. I'll probably reference Orruk Warclans a lot cuz they're my other main army so I know them well, and they provide a good litmus test for a strong (but not broken) book.

First, Stormcast (SCE) being on the weak end of the AoS spectrum doesn't make them unplayable, and they aren't the worst army in the game. They do have a couple strong lists but those lists are kind of gimmicky and many will not want to play against them after they've seen how they work. I'm looking at you Gavbomb. Sigmar tends, in my admittedly limited experience, to be less lopsided and stompy than 40k as well for a number of reasons but one of the biggest ones is how close combat is resolved and the fact that the first turns tend to be more about maneuvering than atomizing 50% of your opponent's forces with shooting. So: I feel pretty confident in saying SCEs are weak but not so weak that they can't perform in competitive events and certainly not so weak you won't have fun in casual games.

Why (I think) Stormcast Eternals have a crummy battletome

-Unit prices are almost universally too high (Especially the Vanguard wing, and Sacrosanct got unnecessary points nerfs in the summer to add it to the pile)

-Staunch defenders is the best command trait in the book (and arguably the only truly good one), and it's just worse than say, Petrifex Elite's allegiance trait which gives a +1 armour save army-wide. Unfortunately to take it you can't be a stormhost, lopping off your access to desperately needed battle traits.

-Battle traits are pretty bad. Look at what other armies get army-wide and then for sub-factions. Stormcasts get, essentially, drop pod assault. That's basically it. The -1 to hit is pretty awful since it only lasts in your turn - compare this to Ironsunz who give the enemy -1 to hit them for their entire army for the first whole battle round.

-Stormhosts are almost universally terrible. Staunch defender is better than almost the entire range of stormhost suites with the notable exception of Heldenhammer. Stormhost tax items are particularly poor. Also, Hallowed Knights can counter friendly buffs targeted on them, due to big brain lore reasons and making their Sacrosanct Chamber guys look like chumps.

-Artefacts, mount traits, lores - these have all been powercrept by later tomes and even just Malign Sorcery. If you're playing with realm rules you will probably never use any Stormcast artefact, except maybe the Luckstone. Pride Leader is incredibly strong but the rest of the mount traits are pretty eh. SCE have a pretty bloated list of character kit options and yet most of them are so terrible you'd never use them.

-Spells compare poorly to what later tomes have access to, and despite paying a premium for the spellcasters themselves SCE doesn't even have one double-casting hero. I'd kill for a Wurrgog Prophet!

-Army-wide 4+ save and 2W base no longer provides the tankiness it did in the old days. Chaos Warriors, Ardboys (even Savage Orruks with a single buff) can be saving on 4s, and all of those ALSO have a save-after-save that can prevent mortal wounds, which SCE lacks almost across the entire army. Equivalent heavy infantry for other armies is also almost always on a 32mm base, hits harder, and maybe even has 2" range, so in a scrum more of them can fight AND they'll fight harder.

-Speaking of bases - Stormcast should be 3W 3A base across the entire range if they're going to be on 40s. 40s is the base size for big guys like Ogors and Orruk Brutes who fight MUCH harder model-for-model than most Stormcast units. Big units of Liberators or Sequitors will get in each other's way very quickly and lack 2" weapons, which really curtails the usefulness of buffs that target single units, which the book kinda relies on.

-Stardrakes hit like a wet blanket compared to other big monsters that have gotten upgrades since 2.0 came around. LIberators are basically Chaos Warriors or Ardboys only worse. Paladins are... sigh. The point is a lot of SCE warscrolls haven't changed since Sigmar was new, and it shows.

-Battleline requirements in Stormcast Eternals are much more restrictive than in later armies, and allow basic troops from non-Strike chambers to be battleline only with a specific general, which inhibits listbuilding and results in a lot of tax units.

There are more but these are most of the core issues in the book. For fun, I'll add two of the book's most powerful exploits, which are potent but seem like they're probably unintentional and (if they work) will make people not want to play with you:

-Heldenhammer is literal insanity and is totally out of sync with the power level of the remainder of the book. Where most of the Stormhosts have some kind of cutsie utility CA, this one lets you doubleshoot a massive blob of Longstrikes which can deal 20+ wounds including mortals to enemy characters on turn 1. Probably unintentional given Heldenhammer's fluff, and speaks to poor internal balance. Very strong, also not particularly fun to fight and this creates essentially the one netlist that will appear over and over again at comp events.

-Gavbombing is the process of taking Gavriel and burning infinite CPs on his CA (which can be spammed) to create a guaranteed charge with a huge chunk of your army on turn 1, coming from deepstrike. Another apparent exploit, pretty easy to screen against but absolutely devastating when your opponent isn't ready for it.

So where does that leave you and me, as players? I mean, knowing the weaknesses of your book is pretty useful but mostly you can't do much but suck it up and do your best to enjoy it. If it works for you, or you mostly play people who play at a more casual level, probably none of this will even matter to you since generalship will account for more than the particulars of people's battletomes.

[Hi I'm Derek]

Brief as possible, I said.

[macstern]

I play almost all sacrosanct because it was a cheap way into aos. I tend to use ballistea with a ordinator cause character assination now wins me most games. It as you started with them being quite resilient but that no longer applies. The points increase was ridiculous for an army that barely competes mid tier. Guess models needed to be sold. For fighting i pair evocators with sequiters and swing them into the fight because they cause mortal wounds 4 plus. Switch other support characters between majic/negation and castellan for buffing sequitors.

[Impulse]

Thanks for taking the time to show your thoughts! I think next week I might try to play Stormcast for the first time and really get a good look at them.

I will say that sequitors got a point increase and it was a bit justified considering how crap liberators are. If you also look at the points buff for lord arcanum, (dropped 20 pts), you are only paying more for sequitors if you are taking more than 2 squads. I feel that's fair cause they're a really, really good unit. They can put 3 special weapons per unit of 5... That's 7 3+/3+ attacks, -1 rend, and 2 dmg, as well as choosing to reroll hits or saves. That's a really strong unit for 120.

Considering a FNP. Hammers of sigmar is the way to go for the 6+ FNP, not the best but it is something compared to staunch defender. Plus the option of reviving a unit of dead sequitors on a 5+ for 1 command point is not bad.

Artefacts, I can't really comment on, I haven't taken a look at them cause i'm locked into a really bad one with hammers of sigmar.

Agree with the spellcasters, I will say though that a lot of the heroes are pretty amazing in terms of durability and what they can put out in comparison. Wurgog prophet is a 7 wound model with a 5+ save and not a lot of attacks. I think the handful of heroes that I own could still charge into the prophet and take a wound or two while dishing out several to him.

Base size is awful, I do wish we could get more than one rank in, it is pretty annoying.

Yea, def agree about the older stuff, they haven't gotten anything good for them. I'll post my list and tell you my general thoughts about my strategy with them.

[Impulse]

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals

- Stormhost: Hammers of Sigmar


LEADERS

Vandus Hammerhand (280)

- Mount Trait : Keen-clawed
(wound rolls of 6 are resolved at rend 3)
Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-Charger (220)

- General

- Command Trait : We Cannot Fail
(6+ FNP on units wholly within 9 inches)
- Artefact : God-forged Blade
(Trash artifact)
- Spell : Stormcaller

Lord-Castellant (120)

Lord-Ordinator (140)

Lord-Relictor (100)

- Prayer : Translocation
(pick a unit wholly within 9, deepstrike them)

UNITS

5 x Liberators (100)

- Warhammer & Shield

5 x Liberators (100)

- Warhammer & Shield

20 x Sequitors (440)

- Stormsmite Mauls and Soulshields

- 8 x Stormsmite Greatmaces

5 x Evocators (220)

- Lore of Invigoration : Celestial Blades

WAR MACHINES


Celestar Ballista (110)

Celestar Ballista (110)


ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS

Extra Command Point (50)

So you can put half your army up in the heavens, most likely going to be 2 ballista + lord ordinator + 1 set of liberators.  Could put vandus as well for a flank, or do another liberator squad, will have to depend on the mission/ how fast your opponent can threaten your ballista.  

20 man sequitor squad with the lord castellant, with the lord arcanum.  Goal here is to slowly move the sequitors up to act as an anvil and hammer in one, with the lord castellant buffing them to a 3+ save, with their shields, giving them a rerollable 3+.  The 8 great hammers in the front, while the others are screening. I"m losing out on attacks but they're not as important as the big hammers.  Lord arcanum will be giving a 6+ FNP, while also being able to revive a model once per turn which is not bad.  

Evocators are another heavy hitter as well as a buff.  Plus they're a valuable deny cause this list is pretty light on spells unfortunately.  

Lord relictor also has a prayer to dish out -1 to hit with some light dmg, as well as potentially translocation, so having the threat of that 20 man sequtior squad in the backfield of someone is amazing.  I know when someone has deepstrike, I will not leave my objective.  

Vandus in the list is really nice and I'd like to move him in the main body b/c he gives out the +1 attack to all models for 1 phase, swinging 24 times, rerolling to hit and hopefully to wound. 

So obviously i haven't played this at all but everything sounds really good on paper.  I love the ballista and they can put in work or they can be pretty bad which is why i don't like investing more than 2.  The 40 wounds of sequitors sounds terrifying to put down and if they do die, they have the chance of coming back on a 5+.  I'll try to play them this week and see how they fare, the issues you've brought up are valid, and it's very possible that these tactics are not as good as I'm making them out to be 

[Hi I'm Derek]

Feb 1, 2020 0:55:50 GMT -5 Impulse said:

I will say that sequitors got a point increase and it was a bit justified considering how crap liberators are. If you also look at the points buff for lord arcanum, (dropped 20 pts), you are only paying more for sequitors if you are taking more than 2 squads. I feel that's fair cause they're a really, really good unit. They can put 3 special weapons per unit of 5... That's 7 3+/3+ attacks, -1 rend, and 2 dmg, as well as choosing to reroll hits or saves. That's a really strong unit for 120.

Oh man here we go! You done it now! You've given me an excuse to complain about Sequitors. Let's focus on "Liberators, only better" for a moment. I can smell the gigantic wall of text brewing in my mind...


All right, let's do some maths, because Sequitor damage output really sounds better in theory than it is in practice. So a properly kitted 5 man squad with the prime carrying a Greatmace will do an average of 6.5 wounds to a unit with a 4+ save, assuming they charge their weapons. If we're generous and give them Celestial Blades they'll do an even 7. Not too shabby, all things considered.

Conveniently, this is almost identical to the damage output of a contemporary - the Orruk Brute. A 5 man brute squad, which costs almost the same points and also does around 7 damage. 

Now, what's the big thing that separates these units? The Orruk Brute is a little slower, has a worse bravery, and quite a few more wounds - but what really marks it out is that it is the worst unit in its entire book, while the Sequitor is one of the best in its. The Brute, despite on paper performing at a similar level, instantly blows the Sequitor out of the water as soon as you add in army synergies. While the Sequitor (like most SCE units) mostly stands alone, it is trivially easy to more than double the Brutes damage output with a Warchanter buff and Big Waaagh allegiance. Now the Brute is doing 15 damage per block of five, and it's still... kind of meh! It's just not a good unit. Switch the Brutes out for Ardboys, and my block is now doing as much damage as a unit of Evocators that are 150% the cost. The depressing thing is, as much as I despise how they massacred Brutes (they look so cool...) I would take their warscroll over Sequitors if I could play them in SCE, and basically just because the extra 5 wounds means they won't melt quite as fast as Seqs do.

What about the Sequitor's utility? Surely its shield re-rolls count for something. Well... kind of? They were a great idea at the time of writing, but the Stormcast book was the first 2.0 tome and since then, we've sort of de-centralized combat phasing. Fight in the hero phase, fight at the start of the combat phase, shooting - Sequitors don't get to take their full re-roll against any of these which seriously inhibits its utility. And that's ignoring that nowadays there are tons of units that rend through that 4+ or deal a lot of mortals, both of which will chunk the Sequitors regardless of the re-roll.

But none of this cuts to the quick of what really ruins Sequitors compared to similar units in other armies: the Lord Arcanum. Tolerable if you're doing the one on Dracoline to buddy up with a blob of kitties, but for all the other kinds... eh. Medicore warscroll spells, only a single cast/unbind, a lackluster lore table and a healing ability that doesn't... work? Who wrote the healing ability on the Lord Arcanum? Was it put in there just to create mid-game arguments about how it's supposed to be resolved? Because I'm pretty sure that's the one thing it's actually good for. The Arcanum is the reason most comp lists still use Liberators and Judicators for their battleline. Sequitors are already too expensive to be taking a 200 point tax unit as your mandatory general. He looks even worse because he's standing next to the Knight Incantor, which is probably the best hero in the book thanks to the free unbind and one of the few warscroll spells SCEs have that isn't totally useless.

To be clear, I'm not saying you shouldn't play Sequitors (or you Lord Arcanum, ugh), I have a ton of them and use them as my exclusive battleline with no plans to change. I just think that we oughta be honest here - they aren't that impressive for a 130 point unit. Now if it were 2018, sure, we'd probably be complaining about how OP Sacrosanct is and that Seqs need a nerf. But today? Nearly every army has a whole toolbox of easy answers for them, and similar units that perform better. If Seqs are stuck at 130 they, like many units in the book, need a warscroll update.

But enough grousing.

Feb 1, 2020 0:55:50 GMT -5 Impulse said:

Agree with the spellcasters, I will say though that a lot of the heroes are pretty amazing in terms of durability and what they can put out in comparison. Wurgog prophet is a 7 wound model with a 5+ save and not a lot of attacks. I think the handful of heroes that I own could still charge into the prophet and take a wound or two while dishing out several to him.

I mean if you are valuing your heroes by their ability to out-fight a wizard in hand-to-hand combat you might be setting your sights kinda low. 

If you were curious, Vandus will only do 6 wounds to the Wurrgog (on a charge) due to the Wurrgog's mask penalizing his to-hit rolls and the Wurrgog's Bonesplittez save.

---

As for the army, I think you need more hammer units. Sequitors are no substitute for Evocators and like I said, a 20 man blob just trips over itself trying to reach the enemy. Its theoretical damage will always be much higher than what you can actually manage on the table, just from their giant bases alone.

The Ballistas will struggle if you don't go to at least 3, but 4 is ideal... at 2 I'm not sure the Lord Ordinator is worth it. He's really the capstone on the Ballista blob to push it up to critical mass. Right now you're only doing 9-10 damage when you drop them within 18", and that's to a non-character. I almost want to say that if you don't want to add more Ballistas you might be better off swapping them out for more Evocators or something. 

Otherwise, good luck - I'd be curious to see how it performs for you.

[Impulse]

Y'know that is fair, I may be seeing them through when I first saw the battletome and I know for sure they won't stand up to top tier armies. Thanks for your perspective, I am eager to give them a try and see how this list works now:)

[Hi I'm Derek]

Yeah playing games is critical to really getting that feel for where your strengths and weaknesses lie. And I mean it's not all doom and gloom. Almost all of SCE's problems are because they (and Nighthaunts, poor guys) were the first 2.0 book and GW sorta changed how they were designing armies afterwards. I'd be shocked if they didn't get a whole new tome when GW is ready to open another chamber.

And like I said in my first post: if you aren't playing comp then most of this is academic.

[macstern]

I've used Ballista the entire time playing stormcast, mostly cause im cheap and dont want to buy new models, lol. I used to run 4 but after the points change 3 so totally agree with your thoughts on numbers. As for how they work in actual play I find I rely too much on them to carry the rest of the army, using everything else as fodder while trying to mow things down at range. The issue is you cannot, ever, and I mean ever rely on them. I smashed Durthu and a treelord in a single round of shooting, and played three rounds getting probably a handful of wounds.

[Hi I'm Derek]

Feb 2, 2020 21:24:12 GMT -5 macstern said:

I've used Ballista the entire time playing stormcast, mostly cause im cheap and dont want to buy new models, lol. I used to run 4 but after the points change 3 so totally agree with your thoughts on numbers. As for how they work in actual play I find I rely too much on them to carry the rest of the army, using everything else as fodder while trying to mow things down at range. The issue is you cannot, ever, and I mean ever rely on them. I smashed Durthu and a treelord in a single round of shooting, and played three rounds getting probably a handful of wounds.

I too enjoy the Ballistas - I am hoping they go back to an even 100 someday since the summer nerfs seemed like they landed a long time after Ballistas were a meta concern. Pretty much to the start of 2019 most of the comp SCE lists seem to use Longstrikes instead, so I think they were going on 2018 results when they went after all the Sacrosanct units.

If only for reasons of convenience since the 110 points cost is awkward and annoying to listbuild around.

[lastcranston]

The big thing that makes me sad about storm cast is comparing them to what I play now: skaven. If your playing gavbomb and I screen my force with a 40 man of death frenzied stormvermin what do you do? Only one of your units is swinging before they do and everytime you kill one it attacks again. Your going to lose a large chunk of your army just trying to do the thing you do before you even start to worry about the other 1650 of my list. What do stormcasts do against double bells? That level of utility or mortal wound potential has no equal in stormcast and if one of the bells is scoring mortals most turns it will take out a good chunk of your list. You also dont have a good answer to clanrats. You have units that can chop through 40 clanrats in a reasonable amount of time but you'll take losses doing it and the unit responsible will not cost the 200 points the rats did. Looking at wounds out compared to points spent is just not favorable to stormcast and when you look at durability on a model by model basis stormcast seem pretty good..until you start looking at the points your paying and see that stormcast are not so durable after all. Skaven are also an older battletome but its aged so much better than it's kind of sad. Gnawholes even grant similar benifits to deepstrike, doubly so with a gnawbomb involved. As a last point think about what in stormcast can compare to any of the verminlords, in pestilens the giant daemon rat Grant's full wounds rerolls within 13 in a subtraction that has access to full hit rerolls on a unit making a borderline absurd number of attacks in a faction with death frenzy. That's just his command ability hes a greater daemon with a close combat ability you would expect from one and is a wizard besides....280 points

[Hi I'm Derek]

lastcranston

Yep, concur down the line. In the current form Stormcast would need substantial point reductions to be effective, and that would gut their (supposed) elite status.

The issue is they seem to want SCE to be the baseline for statting everything else, but they just don't work properly anymore. A Liberator can't be 4+ 2W 2A on a 40mm base and still cost 20 points.

Ah well... knowing GW there's often the 'next codex' pendulum swing to look forward to.

[Impulse]

So I played a game with Cranston sometime ago and I got to try out my theoretical list. I think the Lord ordinator can most likely get dropped, I'm not too fond of ballistas but my god are they useful to do support hero hunting, hitting on 3+'s with the look out sir still going is pretty strong. But they're too swingy imo.

Thinking of dropping him and adding another lord relictor and maybe some prosectors (They are fantastic looking models). Lord Relictor can give an enemy unit -1 to hit, and I can try to do the prayer that makes people reroll hit rolls of 6 against the sequitor blob. Alternatively, I think it makes hit rolls of 6 count as two hits

The 20 man sequitor blob, with the 6+ FNP, Lord arcanum being able to save one model once per turn, Lord-Castellant buffing them with the 3+ save was honestly pretty fantastic. Against anything with no rend, they shrug off wounds like no tomorrow. 3+/ Rerolling into another 3+ with a 6+ FNP was quite strong. They grand hammers definitely put in work, especially with rerolling to hit and potentially to wound with the evocator. Even with rend of 1, there's only a 25 percent chance of taking a wound, and potentially being able to shrug off more with the FNP is pretty good.

I definitely felt them crumple against mortal wounds, but that's pretty standard for most armies. I'm most certainly looking forward to playing them again.

One thing I want to make clear is I def don't think SCE is a top tier army, I'd comfortably put them in mid tier but they pale in comparison to what some of the other armies get for sure.

[Hi I'm Derek]

Glad they're working for you. I'd disagree they're anywhere near the middle of the pack with all the new tomes upping the power level, but hey.

I'll just add, your computations suggest to me you might be miscalculating how rend interacts with Sequitor re-rolls. They have old bad wording so they have the 40k problem where they aren't allowed to re-roll certain numbers even though they failed because re-rolls come before modifiers. So you can never re-roll a 4 or a 5. Seriously compromises the usefulness of the re-roll against stuff with rend. And as I mentioned before, anything that fights first in combat, or worse fights outside the combat phase, ignores the re-rolls entirely. This combined with the mortal wound vulnerability can make your 500 points of Sequitors evaporate if they bump into the wrong thing.

I really wish Sequitors were better but it's hard for me to like them when they're so damned expensive, have so many glaring flaws and have a totally unnecessary general tax.

[macstern]

Mar 13, 2020 16:32:24 GMT -5 Hi I'm Derek said:

Glad they're working for you. I'd disagree they're anywhere near the middle of the pack with all the new tomes upping the power level, but hey.

I'll just add, your computations suggest to me you might be miscalculating how rend interacts with Sequitor re-rolls. They have old bad wording so they have the 40k problem where they aren't allowed to re-roll certain numbers even though they failed because re-rolls come before modifiers. So you can never re-roll a 4 or a 5. Seriously compromises the usefulness of the re-roll against stuff with rend. And as I mentioned before, anything that fights first in combat, or worse fights outside the combat phase, ignores the re-rolls entirely. This combined with the mortal wound vulnerability can make your 500 points of Sequitors evaporate if they bump into the wrong thing.

I really wish Sequitors were better but it's hard for me to like them when they're so damned expensive, have so many glaring flaws and have a totally unnecessary general tax.

To all the people I cheated because I re -rolled everything I'm sorry. lol. Thought that aos didnt have that issue but it seems to be true.