With guard that have 2/3/3/-1/1 that should result in 0,39 succesfull attacks/guard (not counting the extra attack for the alpha), which with a group of 5 that results in about 2 attacks hitting. With the eternal starhost bonus that results in about 4-ish wounds per unit. Which with 3 units is about 12 wounds and a castellant can only heal 1 unit at a time. Shouldn't be that bad unless I'm missing something. Was he fielding just 1 unit of dracoths as his frontline or something? That's the only one I can think of that would actually manage to do this. The others would be liberators and prosecutors but those only have 2 wounds, which makes the heal not reliable enough to actually help all that much. On a sidenote, shields should be worth using if he currently has no wounded models in the unit. Worst case he heals the wound he just got, best case he overheals while at full health then gets wounded.
please don't tell me that the rule of one doesn't apply to them and they can stack buffs due to some technicality.... just please tell me the rule of one isn't that mindnumbingly pointless a bandaid effectivly breaking most wizard based armies (and some individual units) while not doing anything about some of the more Obvious ridiculous stuff...
SCE prayers work like spells (doing damage, modifying rolls and so on), except: - cannot be unbound - require no line of sight - require no casting rolls - are not subject to rules of one Cool, eh? And SCE fanboys still keep saying "But...but....we are not OP, we have SEVERE disadvantages, like not having wizards for example!" ....so GW invented ally points so they can use a Starpriest and stack Mystic Shield and Starlight ON TOP of what they have..... Arrrr......
o come on... just why...why didn't they just make it so that (de)buffs don't stack and that spells/abilities don't all deal freaking mortal wounds to stop mortal wound spam... so much simpler a solution than the disaster that is the rule of one..... also stupid poster boys, what is supposed to be the "bad" side of this army at this point? Do they lack anything? Artillery maybe?
They have plenty of Artllery, low on Magic They should have added a +6 save for every base model against mortal wounds and maybe a +5 for characters etc
Ok, so an update: my opponent used Staunch Defender and the Lord Castellan's Lantern to get that 2+ save. At the time I didn't question it, but he treated his healing ability as each heal negating an unsaved wound in the overall save roll. E.g., if he rolled five 3+ saves with the results being 2-2-4-5-6, he treated the 6 (a heal) as negating one of the 2's. Looking at the FAQ, though, I now realize he was doing it wrong: you're supposed to heal wounds first, then apply damage for unsaved wounds. And the part that sounds really iffy to me: he said the healing kicked in before the unsaved wound "exploded" into D3 Wounds. He claims an FAQ specified that it worked that way, but I found nothing to that effect.
he's spouting rubbish, heals proc on the save-roll, save-roll comes before actually dealing damage so it will never negate incoming wounds, just heal existing ones, hence why it should not be that good on liberators who only have 2 wounds, you're going to heal a maximum of 1 wound per combat round. Also what do you mean before it exploded? It's been decided the attack was D3 wounds long before the healing ever triggere, the attack dealing D3 (or not) has nothign to do whatsoever with any potential healing on his part. I meant stuff that is actually called "artillery" obviously with their dracoths, stardrakes and plethora of guys with bows/guns/crossbows/javalins/throwing hammers/magic hammer cape thing/trumpets that break down terrain the need for actual catapults and canons is kind of minimal..... Also, they really don't have a bonus save to mortal wounds on anything? I'm actually surprised somehow... wouldvé expected some of those new models from the latest batch to have that kinda silly stuff, if only as a test to balance out mortal wound spam.
About the lack of artillery: The keyword artillery is just a restriction. Of course SCE have no warscroll with that keyword. But de facto there is artillery. Examples: - Knight Venator. A flying (for better line of sight) unit with six attacks at 30". With better hit and wound as all artillery, better save, MUCH better move and one special shot that kills any hero on foot if it hits. Oh and of course cheaper. Very cheap. - Celestant Prime. Don't even get me started on that one... a 24" unfailable mortal wounds area attack. Even if he would suck in melee (of course he doesn't, not at all) he would be worth it.
makes you question if they actually play-test stuff.... or even take a look at it for more than a second and don't just do everything that sounds cool.. It's frankly one of the worst parts about AoS, the stupendous degree to which the posterboys are getting preferential treatment. Even the actual space marines have drawbacks... even if that might only be because of them being divided into individual chapters allowing them to at least have some specialisation instead of it just being one giant army that has everything.....
Yeah it is really strange. I hhadn't seen many warscrolls in AoS that looked unbelievably good just by reading them, without even taking synergies into account. ...and then I read SCE warscrolls and couldn't believe it. They are THE elite army. The only thing that holds them back a bit is their point cost. Such good units gave to be expensive, and at least they are expensive. (Compare Ironjawz for example). But SCE are still not expensive enough to make them actually balanced. Sad.
Oh this cruel fate! I agree it's totally silly and especially points values seem very good for what you get. But I chose to play Seraphon over all other factions, the fact that they are not the strongest makes wins when you get them all the sweeter! I choose to not be salty over broken SCE hahaha
I admit I also feel Schadenfreude on seeing SCE players lose. Especially when people are winning tournaments against them. But then at the same time it is sad. I want to like them. I just can't. And I would love to have a more balanced game.
Im curious what keeps them in check though. They have everything they could need and aren't that expensive to field. Yes theyrr not going to field a horde of anything any time soon but its not like theyre playing with half the units their opponent has thus being outmanouvered and flanked too essily.... Are the winning factions just even more op? Or do those just abuse the crap out of one specific mechanic instead of bein good at everything? Or are sce players just bad? Also in terms of fluff, they could be so much nicer if they were given some personality.. Right now theyre barely more than automatons. "Fallen heroes swooped off to the heavens to be reforgrd into angels" could be an amazin theme. But since theyvall look and act the same theyre just boring... Hell technicly an sce could be a former orruk or even a grot (theres bound to be that one insane grot that was brave) according to he fluff. But none of that is used at all in the actual model line.
I think the answer is mortal wounds and/or strong long ranged attacks. Armies that can cause such damage and maybe manage to get the first turn can do enough damage to the SCE so they can survive. Another possible counter is hordes. Even SCE have a hard time killing a fully buffed group of Skeletons. You don't need strong attacks to do that, just many. And SCE lack numbers. Also tactics and luck of course. SCE are not guaranteed to win, they are just more likely to win. If you play your objectives well you might be able to at least limit them to a minor victory. If you then manage to win your other games against non-SCE opponents you might end up higher in the tournament results than they do.
So. I'm going to hijack this thread. There's been a lot of talk about the Eternal Starhost. How good are Guards in the Bloodclaw Starhost? Without a Warden?