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Simple question. I'm about to buy my friends stormcast stuff from the starter set (the old one) and some other units. I know they were considered very cheese prior to GHB2. But to me it seems they got nerfed, as they should, with the new GHB. Am I missing Something, I don't wanna play with broken armies
Cheers

Yeah, kinda. They straddle the border between OP and simply strong. Specifically they are an easy army to play decently and generally forgiving to mistakes, which means for new players they can seem pretty nasty. There are some army builds that are flat out tournament-cheese level OP, hammerstrike force being the most common.

Hmm okay. I thought it weren't that bad anymore. Are there any sub par unit or builds? Lots of dracoths, gun line, liberator wall etc?

Friend plays Ogres and manages to do well against my SCE. In case of a win it's usually some clutch objective win. I don't think either of us enjoy the match up, he will get the first charge and likely to murder everything he touches but he could potentially struggle with spreading out and claiming objectives.

 Knight wrote:
Friend plays Ogres and manages to do well against my SCE. In case of a win it's usually some clutch objective win. I don't think either of us enjoy the match up, he will get the first charge and likely to murder everything he touches but he could potentially struggle with spreading out and claiming objectives.

I could imagine! What type of list do you use?

We both used content from the start collecting boxes, SCE and Beastclaw Raiders, as the foundation. We tend to play at 1000 points as I sincerely don't have the motivation to play beyond that. We use Open War cards to decide on the scenario, deployment and special rules.

I've bumped the rest of my force with easy to build Retributors, Vandus (normally used as someone else), Relictor and Liberators. Depending on the points available I might use some of other miniatures that are available from the local store. Two units of Prosecutors tend to be handy objective grabbers.

Friend added Trolls and hounds.

I don't feel qualified to judge on what's OP or not. I find the power levels in AoS being rather chaotic, even from the armies that have an army book. The RNG element for seizing the round can result in some games easily snowballing for one side in the initial two rounds.

Cool. Well thanks for the respond. My friends play Seraphon, beastclaw and blades of khorne. So it's not like I'm the only one that can bring some Cheese:-D

 Knight wrote:
I don't feel qualified to judge on what's OP or not. I find the power levels in AoS being rather chaotic, even from the armies that have an army book. The RNG element for seizing the round can result in some games easily snowballing for one side in the initial two rounds.

That's an entirely accurate assessment. Fwiw I play games with fixed initiative when I can (no rolling, just alternating), or failing that delay initiative rolls until round three (round two keeps the same order as round one).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Thenord wrote:
Cool. Well thanks for the respond. My friends play Seraphon, beastclaw and blades of khorne. So it's not like I'm the only one that can bring some Cheese:-D

Stormcast is a good matchup for those factions.

I believe Stormcast Eternals are a solid upper-mid tier faction, but they hardly seems to be the dominant cheese.
Fyreslayers, Disciples of Tzeentch, Blades of Khorne, Mixed Order armies, etc are also seen frequently on tournament top rankings.

One of the defining factors of pre-2017 Stormcast Eternals cheesiness was armywide 100% guaranteed alphas strike via Warrior Brotherhood battalion.
This was nerfed by not being included in the 2017 Stormcast Eternals Battletome(with good intention I believe).
The Stormcast Eternals earned the battle trait Scions of the Storm, but is too unreliable for alpha strike.
In fact many view Scions of the Storm as one of the weaker battle traits.

Warrior Brotherhood was included again in the 2017 GHB, but its points cost has increased by almost twice(just like other factions' battalions).
More importantly, Knight-Azyros no longers allows your units to ignore 9" distance limitation when deep striking.
This makes Warrior Brotherhood much less threatening(or cheesy) than its past version.

One of the few competitive battalions fielded by Stormcast Eternals is Vanguard Wing with 30 liberators, but even then it isn't dominating the tournament top place

Yeah, Stormcast seem to be down to two viable tournament builds, neither of which are as bad as they used to be. Unfortunately GW continues to show complete incompetence with balance, enough that the generally good nature of Stormcast rebalancing seems more like a fluke.

(Note that a well-balanced army will NOT be winning tournaments, so Stormcast which have a lot of decent army builds but only a few OP ones are actually in a good spot.)

I dont consider stormcast OP as the newer stuff is released, but I do consider them overly strong and a top choice for powergaming because they get a lot of discounted underpointed options.

A good player with a tournament powered stormcast list will be a nightmare to face though unless you yourself are bringing in the busted cheese as well.

The best Stormcasts List was Aetherwing, I thought? The sniper bows are mean.

Ah I forgot, yeah the sniper bow battalions are pretty stupid good.

generally with legacy armies, its hit or miss, but I have not seen them dominate any of the newer factions, its about on par. again I dont play with points sooo take it for what its worth. the number of warscrolls is about equal.
.

Haha, it's funny that at the same time this thread was made my friend on Discord was talking about how their skeleton army just then decimated a Stormcast force.

Besides the nerfs they got by the last book the Stormcast have always had a big weakness in that their elite status means they can't recover from losses and a game going against them.(compare to other armies where it can range from a bitter blow to barely a slap on the wrist like with Death)

Once the faithful have been shaken, their holy light will be snuffed out.

TBF 40-man skeleton blocks are insanely OP.

Thank you all for your input.
So just to clarify, I shouldn't feel like a d*ck for bringen a hammerstrike or skyborne slayers formation?
Cheers and Happy New year!!

Against a power undead list? Not at all.

Thenord wrote:
Thank you all for your input.
So just to clarify, I shouldn't feel like a d*ck for bringen a hammerstrike or skyborne slayers formation?
Cheers and Happy New year!!

Skyborne slayers isn't legal in basic matched play anymore; it doesn't have a point cost. As for hammerstrike, well if you're opponents are running tough lists it could be cool, but if they brought non-cheese you may want to stay away from it. There are a ton of battalions for Stormcast, most of which aren't bad. Try some out and see what you like!

As a rule of thumb you can compare the GHB battalion costs to those from PPC to find out what it strong and what isn't. It's a bit rough since those battalion values are based off the PPC unit values but generally speaking if the PPC cost > GHB cost it's a strong battalion, if the PPC cost < GHB cost it's a weak one. Ditto for units as well, really.

/shameless

What do you guys think of this list

Drakesworn templar-Arc hammer (General, consummate comander, hammer of might)
Lord celestant
Lord castellant
Lord relictor (lightning chariot)
10 liberators
5 juddicators with bows, prime with thunder bow
5 juddicators with bows, prime with thunder bow
5 retributers
5 protectors/decimators (not sure what would be best here)
2 concussors
2000 points

The templar, conscussors and paladins will go max speed and get into combat asap. Celestant stay a little behind to give a +1 to hit bubble. Liberators stay back to hold objective, judicators shoot stuff and relictor and castellant buff or damage what ever is closest. That's the plan at least..

The Lord Celestant would be better as the general, so he can give the command buff and you can use your warlord trait on the defender trait. +1 to your save except when you charge is pretty good, and makes your dragon slightly less of a target.