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So after playing some a handful of games over recent months, I finally got the opportunity to play in a 2000-pt. Age of Sigmar event. My Stormcast Eternals army got 1 win, followed by two pretty ugly losses, one to an Undead army, and the other to a Chaos army. I put most of my collection on the table, so did not have a lot of other options:

Celestant-Prime
Knight-Venator
Knight-Heraldor
Judicators x5
Liberators x5
Liberators x5
Retributors x5
Decimators x5
Fulminators x2
Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows x6

I continue to be disappointed with the performance of Liberators; they cannot seem to compete with equal-costed units in combat, fail to tie up anything bigger for more than a turn or two, and have too low of a model count to compete for the Pitched Battle objectives we were fighting over in the tournament. I am considering switching to generic Order alliance and getting Battleline units from some other Order list. :(

My dice did not like the new Deep Strike rules at all; two out of the three games my Retributors failed to arrive on the battlefield, and that's rolling every turn starting on turn 2! Any other units I tried to Deep Strike in never made their 9+ inch charge roll attempt after actually arriving to participate in the battle.

I'm not sure what direction to take my army. As listed above, I don't like the Liberators other than their cheap point cost, I do own 6 Aetherwings since they came in the box with my Raptor Crossbow guys, and I am currently working on my Stardrake. Every time I have played, my best performers have always been my two Fulminators; no matter what army I face off against.

Any recommendations from others who have more experience with the Stormcast Eternals army as a whole?

Thanks!

While I don't play stormcast, my friend runs them constantly and at one point I was against them on a weekly basis.

Liberators are good, but 2x 5 man units won't do alot.
You need to invest a bit more in the unit size to make them worthwhile.

If you really dont like them, swap them out for judicators after freeing up some points.

I assume all units are maxed with upgrades?
Retributors should always max out on maces for mortal wounds.



On a side note, are there any armies you are struggling against?

The minimum units of Liberators and Judicators were just there to fulfill the 3 Battleline unit requirement for a 2,000 pt. army. I do own another 5 Liberators, so will try combining some of them into a larger unit. I would love to swap them out for more Judicators, but have not put together the funds to get more of them yet.

The worst army I have ever faced off against was a Skaven army with a crap load of ranged and spells that caused mortal wounds; I got destroyed before getting across the table, and that was before I had purchased any ranged units of my own. I did see one guy with a similar army at the event on Saturday, but I did not have to face off against it...

I have one Starsoul Mace in both my Decimators unit and my Retributors unit.

Pinch of salt obviously, but based on what you said:

luvdiscgolf wrote:
I continue to be disappointed with the performance of Liberators; they cannot seem to compete with equal-costed units in combat, fail to tie up anything bigger for more than a turn or two, and have too low of a model count to compete for the Pitched Battle objectives we were fighting over in the tournament. I am considering switching to generic Order alliance and getting Battleline units from some other Order list. :(

Grandhammer/grandblades in the unit help with its combat output. Layering on buffs is something that helps liberators - staunch defender command trait, lord castellant, bless weapons prayer or divine light prayer, lichebone standard, thunderhead battalion or lord celestant on foot. bumping the unit up to 10 models also helps but you sacrifice the extra prime attack on the extra grandhammer/grandblade. tying up something bigger for a turn or 2 is a good result because it should give you time to play around it. also don't forget you can retreat from combat and use the liberators as blockers to stop from getting to your juicier stuff.

luvdiscgolf wrote:
My dice did not like the new Deep Strike rules at all; two out of the three games my Retributors failed to arrive on the battlefield, and that's rolling every turn starting on turn 2! Any other units I tried to Deep Strike in never made their 9+ inch charge roll attempt after actually arriving to participate in the battle.

You start rolling on Turn 1, so that may have helped. Knight Vexillors help with the 9 inch charge by granting rerolls, but if you're looking to play that drop and smash army, there's 2 battalions that make it work. Skyborne slayers and Hammerstrike Force. I see more hammerstrike force being taken now. Either start the prosecutors on the board, or scions of the storm them in. That should guarantee your 2 paladin units get their charge off unmolested. Celestial vindicators battalion allows you to add another paladin unit to the hammerstrike force

luvdiscgolf wrote:
I'm not sure what direction to take my army. As listed above, I don't like the Liberators other than their cheap point cost, I do own 6 Aetherwings since they came in the box with my Raptor Crossbow guys, and I am currently working on my Stardrake. Every time I have played, my best performers have always been my two Fulminators; no matter what army I face off against.

Any recommendations from others who have more experience with the Stormcast Eternals army as a whole?

Thanks!

I have a love affair with Fulminators. Fulminators and a Knight Heraldor is a thing of beauty. I would suggest you play about with the battalions and proxy some of the other heros - castellant, lord celestant on foot, lord relictor - to see what other combos work for you.

Thanks for the feedback so far guys, good stuff!

Crud, I didn't even think about build my Liberator Prime models with the Grandhammer/Grandblade! The two Primes that I have are from the easy-to-build box, so they are only one pose. Perhaps I can get ahold of a couple extra models with the fancy headgear and build them with Grandhammer/Grandblades. With my Decimators and Retributors I purposely build one of the regular trooper models in each unit with the Starsoul mace, because an extra attack or a bonus to wounding provides no benefit for those weapons.

Question for you, when units from the Hammerstrike formation land, or units from the Vanguard Wing formation get placed, etc. are they still limited to being more than 9" from enemy models? Both formations state the units arriving or being placed are supposed to be placed within so many inches of the Prosecutors, but say nothing about the distance from the enemy. Also, since it does not specify, I'm taking it as they arrive automatically and do not require a dice roll like the Deep Strike units do?

Thanks!

As long as they are within X inches of the prosecutors and more that 3 inches from the enemy they are fine.

The paladins in the Hammerstrike formation come down when you decide. The Vanguard wing would still have to roll because the mechanic is different.

20 man liberator unit with castellant, celestant on foot and bless weapons is a nice chunky unit to stick into combat with vanguard wing