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Here is the question:

How do the Stormcast Eternals deal with hordes, especially unbreakable hordes supported by heroes?

In my experience the Stormcast Eternals are a relatively balanced army. In the past tournament I have managed to counter three horde oriented armies, namely a Lhamian army with tons of zombies, a Bretonnian army with unbreakable peasants and a Khemri army with tons of Scarabs. Counter yes, but I struggled on the objectives of the scenarios.

Breakthrough against the Lhamian was doable and I have scored a minor victory, playing heavily on my Thunderstrike Brotherhood deployment, but Tower and Out of the Mists against the other two armies was a veritable pain in the rear.

Mind, I do score kills, I have managed to score plenty of them, but when the adversary bubble wrapped the objective of the scenario in his unbreakable hordes, even my Decimators could not help me, and plenty of grinding they did, but it was not enough.

Fast forward a few days and in a Triump&Treachery scenario I was once again unable to score due to so many zombies and peasant Bretonnians around the objective token. I was simply unable to cleave through and score.

The problem I have is not killing models themselves, the Decimators actually decimate units, but when the hordes are either high Bravery ones such as the undead (and with the added recovering mechanic) or they are unbreakable due to the Inspiring Presence of a general, then my only way to deal with them is negated and the combat results cannot help me. Granted when my Judicators inflicted plenty of wounds and the unit was far from the general it usually breaks, but in melee things are tough for the Stormcast Eternals.

What is your advice on the matter?

I tend to fight hordes of undead or Bretonnians a lot so all help provided is much welcome.

Wait, why don't Decimators work?

Even if they don't break, you'll kill all their models no?

Also, against hordes, are you making sure that if they only have a 1" range, that it is enforced?

Well they do work but they do not kill enough models, usually. The thing is that plenty of armies can summon new units, for example zombies or scarabs. These units then are placed around the objectives of the mission and whilst you can cleave through an unit of 20 zombies in two turns, usually the victory conditions begin to run from turn four onward and a SE player struggles to complete the mission due to so much expendable fodder in the adversary army.

In my personal experience I have struggled not to kill models but to remove blocks of infantry once an enemy hero uses Inspiring Presence on them. As I have said, usually my best bet is to force break tests, but plenty of formations and plenty of heroes have abilities which negate this modifier.

Long story short, I like my Decimators, but they struggle to cleave through more than one large infantry block per game. Also it does not help that an Undead player can summon even more zombies every turn, thus forcing me to either counter them aggressively (thus hope for striking first) or risk to be swarmed.

So, any tips?

 KiloFiX wrote:


Also, against hordes, are you making sure that if they only have a 1" range, that it is enforced?

Yes, this is a rule that is easily missed. Make sure this is done, and Decimators will DESTROY anything they come across. After all, 10 Orc boyz attacking is better than 25.

But apart from them, Stormcast are pretty adapted to taking out large creatures. Liberators, Retributors, and even Prosecutors (IMO they aren't very good) all have abilities or weapons good for taking down big beasties,

Hehe, dealing with big monstrous creatures is my favorite pastime as a Stormcast Eternal player. My Retributors already earned the fear of my enemies and so far I have yet to meet a massive creature that stands the test of their hammers. Those guys are insane and I have seen players going on tantrum when I have rolled three 6's.

And yes I am cautious that the range limit for the models is maintained, and we also play Azyr to balance things even more, but still it has become something of an Achilles Hell for my army dealing with armies with 80+ unbreakable models or undead.

I find that PPC adresses the summoning problem quite nicely and in a simple way as opossed to other comps so I would recommend giving it a try.

That said if you're having problems with these blocks why not adress the source of evil? You can use a Vexillor and Teleport a unit to kill that nasty summoner hero or even give a Knight Venator the task of assasinating said hero...

Indeed but we usually play with 30 points Azyr and thus I am somehow limited with the number of heroes I can bring. I would love to field more but I also understand the limits to them. In hindsight the source of evil was easily done with since I use either my Judicators or my Lord on Dracoth to counter just such threats with a reliable kill ratio for both units. For example the Coven Throne was quickly neutralized in two turns with the combination of the two units but on the other hand say the Paladin on foot in the Bretonnian ranks was a much tougher challenge.

But even if I do neutralize the source of summons there is still plenty of models around the objectives which need to be dealt with. In the Breakthrough scenario where I acted as the Defender, for example, the zombies tied me for two other turns, and despite a minor victory, that tarpit prevented me to deal with the faster elements of their army, and the Coven Throne was dead by turn two, so no summons, but the zombies did recover models.

In terms of the Bretonnian Man at Arms the problem with them was that while very easy to kill for my Decimators I was unable to force them to Break, thus to dissolve, for they had a Paladin and there was an additional mounted Paladin in case the first was dead. Combine that with their awesome longbowmen and you can understand how I was pressed to divide my forces.

I do admit that dealing with the Bloodbound Reavers was easy enough though, a few shots and one Decimator charge and they dissolved into dust.

Still the main problem is not dealing with the sources of the summons/unbreakable but with the sheer number of models which are usually placed in such a way that they require removal in order to complete the scenario objective. There are events where you really need to grind them to dust.

Well the new Dragon we're getting is mostly designed to deal with horde units so we may shortly aquire a new tool to deal with mobs.

Also a note that if the enemy has their horde more spread out, thus denying your Decimators their many attack count you can always use your Retributors.

For example if we have two units of 5 Decimators and Retributors (with Prime included) accordingly and we assume they attack a large unit that has their models a bit more spread out (imagine the first "rank" with the second rank to be almost 1 inch apart).

Now let's assume that with this spreading of the unit (and have in mind that unless the enemy player who knows our army and sees the Decimators will most likely apply this tactic) that each of the Decimators gains 4 attacks with the Prime getting 5 (since you'll most likely have him in the middle). Now with my rough math-hammer the Decimators will score:

Decimators: 4*4=16 attacks, 11 hit, 8 wound
Decimator Prime: 5 attacks, 3 hit, 3 wound

All in all 11 wounds. If the enemy has 4+ save (unlikely for a horde but a Mystic Shield may as well be in effect ) about 7 to 8 wound will be scored.
With 5+ save 9 wounds will be scored.

Now let's see the Retributors...

11 attacks, 8 hit and 2 out of them are 6s so 4 wounds from there, out of the other 6 hits 4 wound.

With a 4+ save 3 (turning to 6 due to damage 2 of the weapons) of them are scored plus the 4 mortal wounds we get a sum of 10 wounds scored.
With a 5+ save 12 wounds will be scored.

The big difference though is that your Retributors can face any threat be it monster or hero or other elite unit with much more efficiency than your Decimators.

I know my statistics are not 100% accurate, but I think you get the idea...

Bring Balthasar Gelt and get him in range of the wizards. He can dispel 2 spells per turn and gets a bonus to dispelling when he's in range of multiple enemy wizards. Plus he has a metal head so he fits in just fine with my Stormcast (I actually used a high elf wizard body/ Brettonian pegasus knight pegasus and extra head from a box of protectors to create a custom Balthasar Gelt).

This solves new units from materializing.

The retributors/decimators do fine chewing through units when they can't bring in reinforcements. I favor the protectors myself as well - they chew up even horde enemies as well.

Lastly the HERALDOR is great for this if the enemy brings multiple units and gathers them around an objective. Just start sounding the horn at that objective and watch as they take mortal wounds each turn. I've dished out as many as 12 mortal wounds per turn with my heraldor when the enemy clustered his units around his base in a capture the hill scenario.