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Are these things good? What are their capabilities?

One of the best three points you'll spend with the UA for circle. They are one of the keys to unlocking all the movement tricks Circle has. As well as charge blocking, fury management, and healing constructs.

If you are good at using models creatively, as Ronin indicates they are excellent. I've seen Circle players use them to stop assassinations by sacrificing them with creative placement. They offer fury control, their UA is pretty decent.

It also matters: what else is in your army? They can teleport a model which is great. But a smart opponents knows they are fairly easy to neutralize.

Even without the UA the stones are worth 2 points. When all of them are alive you can get extreme threat ranges with your beasts. Even if one or two dies then they are still really useful as charge lane blockers, healing constructs, spell targets*, etc

*Hellmouth and Chain Lightning are two favourites.

Pretty much every Circle army I've played against will have At Least one unit of these. Their UA is really damn good too and very nearly an auto include.

Double up on them for even more beast flinging fun. Kromac and warpath loves this.

Also when something shuts down your ability to charge on the opponents model with your beasts (polarity field) feel free to teleport those stones to be the source of the charge to get you within striking distance of the opponents models.

The stone is an excellent sacrificial model.

It's also good for dealing with eHaley with a two units of stones. If you're inside her control range, she's in double stone threat range.

They're infinitely flexible models as you can see.

Simply put: amazing. healing beasts, porting them around, and they're tough to kill as well

They're not that tough to kill except when they're Stealthed from that UA.

They are actually fairly durable for their point cost. Most infantry has to send one or two things at them to actually kill them, and most guns actually aren't high enough POW to even hurt them on average (ARM 18 with 5 wounds means that POW 10 has to roll double-6 to one-shot them). This is for them being less than a point each.

This creates a situation that, while killable, are the sort of things opponents would rather be putting useful attacks onto something besides a rock.

And stuff.

Killing a stone out of the unit is almost always the most useful way to use up a high pow shot from a Jack or something though. I would MUCH rather kill that first stone than do ten damage to a Warbeast, ect. That's why I hate it when they're Stealthed. I've no Stealth mitigation in my Cryx at range and that Arm18 makes them pretty much immune to Blast damage.

@Aduro: rarely will you face them without the UA (best 1 point spend IMO for circle). Yes, you killing one messes up any shenanigans they can really do, but arm 18 isn't so squishy. If you average 7 on the dice your average pow 14 blast only does 3 damage; and infantry has hard times clearing them (I found this out the hard way). They're good distraction units that are fairly survivable for 2 points.... 3 points with UA. Makes them almost an auto include in any circle list IMO

I might be crazy... Scratch that, I'm crazy but with circle as my hordes faction I actually don't like the shifting stones. Yes they are useful and give cool movement shenanigans, but they run into a problem of having to use an ability to move, which means they are basically knocked down every turn automatically, and I almost always feel that I could have spent the 2 points better.

I haven't used the UA because I can't quite justify the extra point just for stealth. Also my lists almost universally use up that last point, so I never have a floater. My Rhuls could use a 1pt add on... somewhere, but my Circle lists are always running full.

For instance my Grayle list DOES use the stones and a Blackclad for scenario games, but with the Lord of the Feast, Morraig, and the Wilder (Gone Wilder, amirite?) my points are pretty full. With that solo (and stones) load out I have utility pieces, heavy hitters, distractions, and damage/fury management. To take the UA in my list I'd have to swap out the Lord for a Tharn Whitemane, who would perform a similar function (feat movement generation) to get the extra point, but if you asked people what was scarier to face AND harder to kill, the unanimous answer would be the Lord. Replace any of those other guys, and I have other points left, which could be used for Gallows Groves, but I don't think any of those are worth removing. Only the Waywatcher comes close, but I still don't see him being worth less than the stones UA. (But the UA plus a Grove for Gallows shooting... hmm...) YMMV

It's not just a point for stealth. It's a point to double the range the stones can be out and a POW 14 ranged attack with a crit knockdown as well.

Not really sure why you'd want a tree for Grayle though. Gallows is nice but you're going to have to boost to hit anything that's not a warjack with it and that's 2/3rds his fury.

Stones are definitely awesome, especially with the UA. With two units you can pull some really crazy slingshot moves, where you fling a heavy ~10" (teleport within 8" + ~2" base) into another set of stones, which then flings it another 10". This gets your heavies very far across the table in any direction, allowing for quick redeployment and surprise placements. Sometimes you can't teleport directly at an enemy and make it in one go, but if you teleport at at angle into other stones, your new placement will be within range.

Speaking of surprises, you can also teleport stones from the other unit, which suddenly changes how they move other things.

Another way to think of it, say you have a beast knocked down. Well, if you don't want to spend the fury to get him moving normally, just teleport him around then have him give up movement to stand. You don't sacrifice movement to teleport, just you can't advance, so you can still sacrifice it to stand (from my understanding) and then swing away.

Here's a good tactica on PP's site: http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?66442-Tactica-Shifting-Stones-(-now-with-pictures!-)

 Wehrkind wrote:
Another way to think of it, say you have a beast knocked down. Well, if you don't want to spend the fury to get him moving normally, just teleport him around then have him give up movement to stand. You don't sacrifice movement to teleport, just you can't advance, so you can still sacrifice it to stand (from my understanding) and then swing away.

You might want to read the stone's card again. After being placed by a stone, if a model then activates it has to forfeit movement. You can't forfeit movement for anything else, like removing Knockdown, aiming, etc.

Oh damnit, you are right. The UA can't advance, but the teleported model forfeits. Well, that's something to watch out for then!

Also, the tactica I linked wasn't the one I was thinking of (though it is still handy.) The one I was thinking showed examples in Vassal about how to do the slingshotting etc. If I come across it I will link it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Flash of memory: http://steam-poweredgamer.blogspot.com/2012/04/shifting-stone-tactics.html

You have to be careful with the double slingshot though. It's real easy to not only get out of control area but be too far away for the caster to get back there. You're also likely suiciding that beast as well, even if you can force it. Trading a 10 point beast is one thing. Giving it away is entirely worse.

That is a good point, though with many of our casters having a 14" control area, or eKaya having the ability to force out of her control area on feat, it isn't too bad. You do need to watch order of activation though; often if you are going the full distance you will need to move your caster first to get your ctrl bubble where you need it. The stones can fling the beast while it is out of ctrl, so that works, and so long as your caster is within ctrl of the beast before it activates, you are set. So fling, fling, then stroll your caster over to get your bubble just within forcing range, and go to town.
It requires a little planning ahead, but still, giving your beasts a nearly 20.5" threat range (22" with reach) will surprise the hell out of opponents if you are careful. Especially with things like the Wold Guardian that is Khador slow, you can catch people off guard. And remember that if a model is teleported behind an enemy model and then activates it gets back strike bonuses for being behind the enemy for its entire activation. This can really help.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, that brings up another good point. With eBaldur (if I recall) his theme allows you to put Shifting Stones 20" forward. Even without this they still go pretty far. If you can keep them out of LoS to avoid getting charged down, you can have a triangle of stones right about where the forces will clash. Hopefully about 2" in particular. This means you can have a heavy charge or get teleported by another set of stones, smash something down, then flick it backwards to safety, and perhaps out of LOS.

Seriously, you can go on all day about how awesome Shifting Stones are like that. Their biggest weakness is that your opponents will quickly realize this and try to kill them, but if they are throwing the kind of resources that requires, it means your other stuff is getting ignored, so win for you. At less than a point each they are still useful if they can't teleport, just to heal a little, block lanes, pull a point of Fury off, etc.