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Hello Dakka,

Whilst I have been having endless fun with my gloomspite (fanatics took out a stonehorn last night and almost slaughtered a Mortek Guard until they were looked sternly at and promptly exploded) but I do find myself missing having a sturdy line and some decent shooting, so I am considering a Stormcast army (Painted up as Stonecast to double as some awesome terrain features)

How do they look? Im not looking to dominate as my local meta is very casual at the moment with some competitive scene I may look at later. I love the look of Judicators and all the crossbows truth be told.

Hi,

I'm new to Stormcasts myself but I've played a couple of games with them and they feel pretty decent.

They aren't top tier by any means but a decent list and some tactics means they can get up there, I feel like the wave 1 stuff needs a desperate overhaul (for instance liberators vs sequitors) but our shooting seems pretty decent.

Vanguard-raptors are pretty awesome especially with the longstrike crossbows

I personally rate castigators but many feel they are underwhelming, judicators are similar but battleline which makes them slightly more valuable despite lower damage outputs.

They seem like a very middle of the road army in my eyes, strong but not overtly powerful

I think some of the free cities has good shooting. Aslo, you can include stormcast units in there.

I've been doing a fair bit of research into them with Mortal Realms coming out.

Many of their options have suffered as Sigmar has gone on, and gotten a bit left in the dirt. There are a lot of units there, but a lot of them are traps, or at least outclassed by other options.

The newer Sacrosanct chamber stuff especially makes a lot of the original Stormcast lineup look pretty dire. There is a bit of a tradeoff though in that to get Sacrosanct units as Battleline you need a Lord Arcanum as General. But they are decent enough units, so it's not that big a deal.

Sequitors are just loads better in every way than Liberators. You need a really compelling reason not to take a Lord Arcanum because of this.

Theres a lot if debate online about which Paladin unit is better when, but they've all been utterly usurped by Evocators. It's not even funny. Even without comparison to Evocators, Retribitors etc are all looking a bit sad compared to what Elite units in other armies can do now at similar point costs.

Prosecutors have pretty poor damage and durability for their cost. But their speed gives them some value.

Judicators are ok for what they are, and arguably better even for the increased cost versus Castigators. Pretty much the only original Stormcast unit that sort of still has a place. That being the case, if you dont need Battleline I'd just take Ballistas (remember they can Deep Strike just like every other Stormcast unit!)

The Dracolith cavalry are ok, but similar to Paladins not terribly exciting for their costs compared to other armies.

Vanguard stuff is mostly just ok still. Palladors somewhat have a place. Raptors are pretty good!

The choice of artefact, command traits, and spells are where we still see a lot of early very cautious design. Nothing here that is particularly exciting at all, and the same goes for all the sub faction specific options too. Very tame, low power choices compared to armies that have come out more recently. Staunch Defender command trait is a bit of an exception, very strong choice.

Overall, I'd focus on Sacrosanct based around Sequitors and Evocators (possibly a Cleansing Phalanx), and should still leave you quite a few points at 2k to have fun with!

Yeah that's what concerned me slightly, I love the look of Liberators a lot more than Sequitors but on the plus side, they're so dirt cheap to pick up online I could afford more and swap it out compared to most other armies.

CoS is another consideration, but Im not looking for a very horde army, I already play gloomspite where the smallest goblin units I field are 20! (5 for fanatics, but they're more akin to a one shot force of nature than an actual unit )

So if you're like me and feel like you need a mechanical justification to take units, look at it this way:

Sequitors are only an option for Battleline if you have a Lord Arcanum general. If your list doesnt have space for one, then you still need Liberators and Judicators. If you were taking the Lord Celestant on Stardrake for example, that might eat so many points that taking a Lord Arcanum too might not practical, and the benefit of making the Celestant General and giving him a Command Trait might be enough to reasonably justify losing battleline Sequitors.

Personally though, I really like Sequitors! The robes really add to the Stormcast aesthetic for me.

I see people in my area playing mostly 'shootcast' gunlines with mixed results. They do Ok vs. mid-size and elite armies and get facerolled by horde or durable armies who can weather the mostly -1ap shooting and make it into combat.

In general, they're very much near the bottom. They don't do anything particularly well short of those few shootcast lists.
They have a lot of units, and some 80% of them are not offering enough to warrant bringing over more basic sequitors (or liberators if you happen to be like me and got a bunch of them before the sacrosanct upgrade) or judicators/ballistas.

Stux has the right of it. They aren't bad but many of their unit options have been left behind by power creep. The upside is some of the biggest offenders in 'I do what you do, but better' are within their own battletome in the form of Sequitors & Evocators. They also have so many options that inevitably some are really strong, some are really weak, and everywhere in between.

Stormcast also still have a tourney-viable build in Anvils with a 9-man blob of longstrike raptors shooting twice per turn. It is common enough that potential tourney players will appreciate practicing against it. With that in the lineup Stormcast are among the few armies that can field an army at any level of effectiveness; from comedic to competitive.

From what I have seen at competitive events, Stormcast's official rankings suffer from tournament newbies showing up with their Stormcast and having no idea what they are getting into, verses regular tourney players who have encountered Stormcast before and know what to expect. I think without that factor they would be mid-tier instead of low-mid.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
From what I have seen at competitive events, Stormcast's official rankings suffer from tournament newbies showing up with their Stormcast and having no idea what they are getting into, verses regular tourney players who have encountered Stormcast before and know what to expect. I think without that factor they would be mid-tier instead of low-mid.

Yup, I can back this up with recent anecdotal evidence from a local tourney I was in. My buddy brought a practiced, 9-man Longstrike Anvils of the Heldenhammer list. Went 3/2 with it, a solid showing. In the lower brackets, I played against a 6-man Longstrike, no Anvils army where the guy didn't have as much practice, and my meh-ish Sylvaneth list (I stubbornly refused to run Winterleaf, or spam Kurnoth Hunters... my own fault admittedly, I was expecting the tournament to be more friendly-casual like it was the previous year ) and kinda' just walked all over the guy's army cause it wasn't as optimized or strong as my friend's.

 Stux wrote:
Judicators are ok for what they are, and arguably better even for the increased cost versus Castigators. Pretty much the only original Stormcast unit that sort of still has a place. That being the case, if you dont need Battleline I'd just take Ballistas (remember they can Deep Strike just like every other Stormcast unit!)

I'd argue about castigators, for the same price as a basic unit of judicators you can get 6 castigators that outperform them all the way from a 2+ save to a 6+ save and only the point where the target has no save does the judicators top out. Ballistas are absolutely amazing though

 Samuhell wrote:

 Stux wrote:
Judicators are ok for what they are, and arguably better even for the increased cost versus Castigators. Pretty much the only original Stormcast unit that sort of still has a place. That being the case, if you dont need Battleline I'd just take Ballistas (remember they can Deep Strike just like every other Stormcast unit!)

I'd argue about castigators, for the same price as a basic unit of judicators you can get 6 castigators that outperform them all the way from a 2+ save to a 6+ save and only the point where the target has no save does the judicators top out. Ballistas are absolutely amazing though

That's fair. The other nice thing about Castigators is they are our cheapest Battline. Sometimes being able to get your last slot filled for 80pts so you can spend the rest elsewhere is pretty nice.

 Stux wrote:
That's fair. The other nice thing about Castigators is they are our cheapest Battline. Sometimes being able to get your last slot filled for 80pts so you can spend the rest elsewhere is pretty nice.

Where/when did they get changed to battleline?

Judicators outperform castigators by a fair margin, though that is with the caveat of assuming longbows and a shockbolt bow on the champion. 24" range means they can reliably shoot from one deployment zone into another, or camp an objective and keep shooting. Re-roll hits of 1 against chaos is better than the nighthaunt/daemon effect of the castigators. The averages simply end up higher once all factors come in, especially as the unit takes damage because roughly half the output is just in the unit champion.

All moot, because neither unit has any business in a tourney SCE list. Points that could have been spent on longstrikes.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Judicators outperform castigators by a fair margin, though that is with the caveat of assuming longbows and a shockbolt bow on the champion. 24" range means they can reliably shoot from one deployment zone into another, or camp an objective and keep shooting. Re-roll hits of 1 against chaos is better than the nighthaunt/daemon effect of the castigators. The averages simply end up higher once all factors come in, especially as the unit takes damage because roughly half the output is just in the unit champion.

All moot, because neither unit has any business in a tourney SCE list. Points that could have been spent on longstrikes.

Can't agree more.

It is baffling to see Stormcast players need to pay 32pts per model for a single shot.
I would rather have 3.2 Freeguild handgunners or crossbowmen for same points cost.
It is a chief reason why Stormcast lists with any sense of competitiveness only take liberators as battleline and not judicators.

 Samuhell wrote:

 Stux wrote:
That's fair. The other nice thing about Castigators is they are our cheapest Battline. Sometimes being able to get your last slot filled for 80pts so you can spend the rest elsewhere is pretty nice.

Where/when did they get changed to battleline?

They are Battleline with a Lord Arcanum as General.

They definitely aren't. They'd actually have some use if they were.

Cronch wrote:
They definitely aren't. They'd actually have some use if they were.

I've just checked the errata and you are quite right!

I need to have words with Battlescribe.

It'll be fixed in the next release. I imagine there'll be a fair few people who's list planning will be ruined