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I'm pretty interested in starting a SE army, but I'm not sure about their overall effectiveness on the tabletop. As a low model count army, they play pretty differently than other armies with bricks of dudes or cheaper units of Cavalry and elite-types. In 40k, low model count, elite armies are generally pretty bad unless they have some sort of gimmick, but I realize AoS is a very different game. I'm just worried about playing an army that feels the loss of each model so drastically compared to others, and that it makes them less effective overall.

What have your experiences with/against them been?

I know it kind of runs contrary to what most people think but I usually outnumber my opponents. That's because we lack the point sinks most of the other armies, No HQ taking up half of our points, no need for behemoths, and no artillery (jury is still out on whether or not we need it).

As for how they play, a lot like space marines on foot actually. You have a few tricky units (knight vexillor for instance), but by enlarge it's a straightforward force to play who is tough enough to survive a few mistakes.

Agree with a lot of what Grimgold said. I love my SE army, up to almost 4k points now. They have a good basic infantry and more missile units than most of my opponents. The paladins work as a special forces and should be deployed to deal with specific threats the enemy fields. The heroes are pretty tough. It isn't a glass cannon army by any means.

Negatives for me is mostly the lack of magic - I usually bring an order wizard of some kind who can unbind enemy spells and maybe cast around a mystic shield from time to time.

Interesting to hear, I was worried they would end up like GKs or Deathwing in 40k - expensive but powerful, though in 40k it ends up not mattering a lot because of the insane damage output.

Everything in AoS has insane damage output compared to how 40k plays. Between rend, 4+ armor saves, and battleshock units will just evaporate. Stormcast have a lot of good command abilities to help with the battle shock portion, and multiple wounds on every model means each wound isn't taking someone out of the fight (which helps with the battle shock thing as well). There aren't any safe units in AoS, no TWC or Necron wraiths, even our toughest units can be focused fire downed quickly.

It's really refreshing coming from 40k, If a unit is a problem for me, I have the tools and options to remove it, as opposed to 40k where you have to work around your opponents best units because they aren't worth shooting at.

Do you SE players add in other Order units? At the very least, I'm looking to add in a Wizard or two to pop out a Shield or at least do an Unbinding.

Requizen wrote:
Do you SE players add in other Order units? At the very least, I'm looking to add in a Wizard or two to pop out a Shield or at least do an Unbinding.

if you wanna be dirty you would add a huricanum. 300 points and the wizard on it is a free upgrade but does use a hero slot. The buffs it gives out and its ability to deal mortal wounds is brutal. Imagine a stormcast army with a 12" bubble of +1 to all hit rolls. Hitting on 2's for most units

I think it's more fluffy to have a lore of heaven's wizard or proxy a excelsior warrior priest. Hell lore wise the wizard's jobs are to help out the human armies with magical might. Plus the excelsior warrior priest can heal and unbind which is good for high wound models and it's really fluffy since he is using sigmar's divine magic.

Warrior Priest looks nice, also very cheap which is good.

One of the big reasons to bring Wizards, I find, is to dish out Mortal Wounds from a range, something I feel will be very important as the meta develops more. While we have a couple heroes that do this, a cheap Wizard for Arcane Bolt (or unique spell) or the Hurricanum seem like good options.

Requizen wrote:
Warrior Priest looks nice, also very cheap which is good.

One of the big reasons to bring Wizards, I find, is to dish out Mortal Wounds from a range, something I feel will be very important as the meta develops more. While we have a couple heroes that do this, a cheap Wizard for Arcane Bolt (or unique spell) or the Hurricanum seem like good options.

Get the excelsior warrior priest warscroll since he can heal ANY order unit not the normal one if you plan to use it.

Um - read the rules for the SE heros. A lot of what you are looking for you can either warscroll/hero option for cheaper.

And SE don't "cast" per se - we just get our bonuses. Only thing we don't have is reliable magic negating.

We don't have artillery but we do have the Knight Ventator - and vs Heros/Monsters it wrecks face. I take 2 and snipe from 30' away and don't feel bad about it.

shinros wrote:
Get the excelsior warrior priest warscroll since he can heal ANY order unit not the normal one if you plan to use it.

Oh, the one from Silver Tower, gotcha. That's actually pretty nice, and a fairly cheap model too.

Uriels_Flame wrote:Um - read the rules for the SE heros. A lot of what you are looking for you can either warscroll/hero option for cheaper.

And SE don't "cast" per se - we just get our bonuses. Only thing we don't have is reliable magic negating.

We don't have artillery but we do have the Knight Ventator - and vs Heros/Monsters it wrecks face. I take 2 and snipe from 30' away and don't feel bad about it.

I suppose they are pretty similar, just considering my options. Unbinding is pretty useful overall, as is Mystic Shield, so I don't think our Heroes outpace Wizards by that much, but they do definitely have much more synergy and are generally better combatants.

But the SE heros don't roll - so we always get our abilities. They can't be dispelled either.

Wizards you are spending extra points on with the ability to be negated.

 Uriels_Flame wrote:
But the SE heros don't roll - so we always get our abilities. They can't be dispelled either.

Wizards you are spending extra points on with the ability to be negated.

They don't "always get it". Many of them are once-per-game only or require a roll to go off. There are some that are automatic Mortal Wounds, but they generally aren't as strong as Arcane Bolt either, or are attached to characters that aren't as cheap as a Wizard (like the Celestant-Prime).

Not saying that Wizards are better than SE character, but I would simply argue that they aren't worse overall.

? Every Hero in the SE army has ability that says "pick" not "roll". Some are once per battle, yes. But no rolls needed.

Except the Relictor - you basically are rolling a 3+ on one die. I suppose that is worse than a 5+ on 2d6...

Probably why he sits on the shelf for me.

Now Extremis/Stardrake Units are a mix, which is why I prefer the Templar vs. Celestant.

All the Lord Celestant variants need to roll for their MW effects, which is what I was thinking of, as well as the Relictor.

Once-per-game effects are both more and less effective than Arcane Bolts or unique spells. They are guaranteed to go off, sure, but if a Wizard is durable (like a Greater Daemon/Prince or a Wizard on Behemoth mount), they'll get multiple castings off per game. And the SE ones come with stipulations - Heraldor and Azyros for instance have positioning requirements so you can't always gaurantee you even use them - if the Azyros dies before it gets close, it does nothing. If the opponent steers clear of Terrain near your dudes, the Heraldor does little.

Again, not better or worse (and I personally think the Relictor is a fantastic addition, for instance), and I think there are situations where a Wizard in the army could be quite useful.

Semantics I think.

LC - Warcloak gets to use d6 attacks vs any unit within 16". 4+ for each does 1 mortal wound.

He does not have to roll 2d6 to use this ability, he just picks.

LC on Drc - doesn't have a spell per se. All weapon based.

CPrime - Comet doesn't roll 2d6 - just happens within d6" of point picked.

Azyros - 1x Battle, each enemy suffers within 8". Chaos even worse.

Herald - affects terrain and all units with d6" inches.

Vexillor - Has 2 1x Battle abilities. Doesn't roll to go off, but affects nearby units on 4+ (Stormbringer) or within 2d6" (Metoric).

Castellant - Pick Chaos/SC - does damage/heals and adds +1 to save. No roll needed.

So again, not sure the cost benefit of adding mages to SC lists or just using what you have.

Agree that we don't need wizards for the buffing of our own units, but the dispelling aspect can be really important. Consider a unit which can unbind 2 spells per turn and just add that model/unit. For me, it was Balthasar Gelt, and his helmet looks suspiciously like a stormcast eternal helmet anyway.