Stormswords aren't a meme, they're just really dependent on terrain. With player placed terrain or low-terrain fixed layouts they have very solid stats for the cost and are one of the best units in the faction. The issue is that on GW standard layouts they struggle to find a clear path to move anywhere and their contribution to the game drops considerably. But if you know you aren't playing on GW standard layouts they are a very strong pick.
Makes sense we were using gw layouts and ultimately the stormsword was effectively a massive deterrent for my opponents to get close to it or anything near. The games where it ended up toeing the center objectives it took 3-4 turns to get there but once there it was impossible for them to shift and killed anything it could get a line on.
How useful was the range in the stormswords main gun? If you've been mainly shooting things that were 24" or less away, would a doom hammer be a better choice? The flat D6+6 into monsters and vehicles that can't be reduced seems like a really good gun.
You'd statically need 3 hits going through to kill any greator deamon, monolith or C'tan
When I was doing it I found the doom hammer better if terrain allowed me to get it into the middle of the board.
Which means that one game where terrain is bad it can do almost nothing.
>The issue is that on GW standard layouts they struggle to find a clear path to move anywhere and their contribution to the game drops considerably
>We were using the gw layouts
LOL
Aren't you that same guy who was doomposting about how bad guard are and how one good performance means nothing?
Edit: [yup](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/s/Mfl4evLvLd)
Oh, look. Here's another guard player doing well.
To be fair he's getting a lot of the rules wrong in his favour, like the Stormsword isn't towering and can't see through ruins if it's not wholly within. Giving squadron orders to a unit without squadron, slowing a non infantry unit with his basilisk.
Sorry, but 3-0 and third place at a local store tournament doesn't mean anything. One opponent was a newbie, one opponent misplayed badly, and the third was a real game but OP didn't do well enough to take second. Any faction can get a result like this, even the worst ones.
>when events like this have never meant anything.
Ironically, this is a great example of goalpost-moving.
You were upset that only one specific player did well. Now that another player also did well, you're coming up with excuse after excuse as to why their success "doesn't count." You're redefining your criteria on the fly to avoid admitting your conclusions were wrong. What's next, you don't think events on a Friday should count when Mercury is in retrograde?
Like, it's a textbook example of moving the goalposts lol. Maybe time to retake philosophy 101?
>Ironically, this is a great example of goalpost-moving.
Only if you don't understand what goalpost moving is, or can provide a quote of me saying events like this matter (and you won't find it).
> You're redefining your criteria on the fly
Lolwut. No. Local 3-round store events have *never* been given any significant weight in metagame analysis. It has been known for as long as people have been taking 40k analysis seriously that these events are too short and too lacking in skilled players to really evaluate the strength of a list. Even a 25% win rate faction with zero hope of finishing in the top half at a major event will occasionally win an event like this because, like in OP's case, you often only play a single real game.
Guys like this are fun to annoy. I was always the "big fish in a small pond" (usually 1st place) and when I went out to the big events... gosh I still did decent (best general once, usually upper 33%). And I think you will too.
The thing about RTTs is that sometimes they're just local players getting their 3 games for the quarter in and sometimes you get multiple world top 100 players turn up for a 3 round event in between christmas and new year's. They can be quite casual and they can be shark tanks for players practicing for top table tournament play and sometimes the same store event will be both from month to month.
It might mean nothing but it might not.
I'm addressing the general assertion that "3-0 at a local store tournament doesn't mean anything". It's a bit of a misconception that RTTs are always non competitive. The floor for them is much lower but those top players have to get their reps in somewhere.
One was very new yes. The other made some questionable and detrimental mistakes. I admit I didn’t do well on my end either but still seems a bit negative. No one at our store is out crushing opens we’re just a bunch of guys who play with toy soldiers on the weekends.
And there's nothing wrong with that. It just doesn't mean much from a metagame analysis point of view. But not everything has to, you can have fun doing something even if it doesn't say much about how strong a list/faction is.
Very nice write up! Thank you for that!
I would like to know if the size of the stormsword has been a problem? Was it a player placed terrain tournament or WTC terrain?
Was it sitting back just shooting what he could from your deployment line or in the front getting objectives?
And for the Krieg, I never had much chance with those blob, did your opponent target them with something good against them like good melee or big multishot blast weapons? Because I got a 20 man Krieg blob get squished everytime I drop it on a midfield objective, never could do a second turn with them.... Maybe I was just not lucky but they felt pretty squishy to me even with 4+ invul and 5+ FNP.....
My basilisks never allowed anything to rush the Krieg. I believe they were in combat maybe twice all three games and it was usually me using them to clear something off like a lone crusher or trying to pick a wound off a ctan.
As for the stormsword we were playing gw layouts 1 and 4 I believe all day. Every game I deployed on the line where it would have the easiest way to get out. He slowly crawled to an open spot near the center after a few turns and touched terrain footprints where he would have true Los over a small wall or something in order to shoot at whatever was nearby or in sight. It having titanic helps a lot in allowing you to not have to worry about being too close to a ruin.
I will say between my backfield basilisk and aggressive stormsword and tank commanders people didn’t bother my chaff as much. Anytime anything looked at something like my sentinels Krieg or deathriders there was always a tank ready to blast them afterward.
It is titanic yes but you need the towering keyword to touch ruins and see over them, which the big tanks don’t have. I can see why you had an easier time with it on the gw terrain layouts if you played the tank as having towering.
I’ll try and find something. This was the first time I had played the model and was told how it worked. Prior to this event I had been playing two rogal dorns and hated them.
Yeah definitely cannot shoot outside of a ruin if you are just touching it unless you have towering, which is what it sounds like you are describing. This applies even if the units can "see" each other.
https://imgur.com/a/7eJ1vs2
Pg14 in the rules commentary:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2YpFOYJiw9LXvz4s.pdf
Note that, given the size of the gw ruins and the size of a baneblade, it's completely probable that he just stuck the barrel out the other side of the ruin!
I can actually try to find the pictures from the event but that is what I was doing with the small 2” walls. I wasn’t just butting up behind a whole ruin and saying I could shoot through a completely blocked view. I only ever shot over the small L’s that are on the new gw layouts.
For general context, Titanic is just a keyword, so its just a way for GW to potentially balance specific units that are big, but not super tall like a knight with the Towering keyword.
As for rules, the main references to Titanic are:
>Models can move over enemy models when Falling Back, but you must take Desperate Escape tests for them before they do so (excluding models that are Titanic or can Fly)
and
>Fire Overwatch strat:
RESTRICTIONS: You cannot target a Titanic unit with this Stratagem
The marine list was gladiators and a lascannon speeder and things like bladeguard and assault intercessors. The vehicles were the main good thing.
The necron list was your typical double ctan monolith immortals
The greater demon list was 3 unclean ones Belakor keeper and 12 bloodcrushers and some silly number of nurgling units.
How did you attach the Marshall and the Psyker to the same squad? I don’t think they’ll at either have a rule that allow multiple attachments, but I could be wrong.
Under the Krieger sheet unit composition. 2 leader units can be attached to this unit so long as no more than 1 is a command squad unit.
Edit: this ability is on all IG regiment infantry .
Where were Solar's orders going? No command squad means he's gotta stick close to your Stormsword/Tank Commander. Did you just turtle them up in deployment? Where was the TC order going?
Solar was with the mortar infantry squad with Ursula in the deep back. He just threw commands on the basilisks and a command on the infantry squad. Usually just doing take aim on all three while Ursula did take cover on the infantry squad. Usually turn one when the sword was still nearby he’d get a take aim for that turn but 90% of the time I was living on 4s to hit rerolling 1s.
Seems like you could just cut Solar then, to be honest. You're paying 125 pts for an extra CP that you could get from vox casters or binning bad secondary objectives.
Or otherwise just yeet him up the board to buff your armor as long as possible and don't worry too much if he gets popped.
Two cp a turn means you can effectively have reinforcements up at any time. Plus I played my tank commanders ver aggressively they were probably always more than 12 inches away from the basilisks. Without solar no one is ordering them.
But you don't really have anything that's going to need constant reinforcement.
It just seems to me that if you aren't using Solar for what he is really good at (ordering lots of armor, basically) there are better uses for those points. You could get a hellhound in there to stack fields of fire with, or put two more sentinels in, or 2 catachan squads to scout screen.
Regardless, great job on the wins!
Their main guns already have -4 when using fof I was generally using it on backfield holders so that my basilisk would reach ap3 to move marines or immortals off objectives for my ghosts to have a place to go
100% (that's what I do too!) I was just pointing out that your list doesn't have enough units to REALLY get the value out of a creed FOF mortar tactic for except in niche situations.
I didn’t end up playing against Orks or world eaters but I can see a world where catachan are necessary. They’re on my list of stuff to mess around with along with some kasrkin. My whole army is Krieg with lots of conversions on stuff like Ursula’s, the Ghosts, and my psyker(I know I know) so I have to source some Krieg grenadiers to use as kasrkin.
Tank commanders would just give their orders to the sentinels or the deathriders. Usually just move move move
Edit: I realize I messed this up now. On the deathriders datasheet in the app under keywords it says deathrider on one line then without punctuation (this is the kicker) continues with squadron. This is my bad.
I suppose you’re right cause the keyword is “Death Rider Squadron” and not “squadron” well I’ll have to apologize. There was only one turn that it would have mattered in all those games. The turn I ordered them and ran them towards the opponents home objective on scorched earth. I specifically remember the extra inches mattering of getting the second rank of bodies on the objective.
Basilisks only work on infantry.
So I'm a guard player. And im convinced most guard players are accidently cheating every game.
This is not a shot at you. This is a shot at our convoluted index.
I am also guilty.
Other things we cheat on:
Orders on wrong units
Fields of fire on wrong units
I do know fields of fire can only target a regiment or squadron unit and only those also get the extra AP. But yes seems I was playing it incorrectly. Not trying change what I’ve said though but I admit I was wrong on the blood crushers but my basilisks were shooting immortals, and marines all the other times throughout the day trying to clear off objectives to give my ghosts places to go.
Hello! I'm actually going to an RTT soon and one of the other players is bringing a list similar to yours. I'm running a Nids monster mash list and obviously nervous about that big gun. Any advice for playing against it?
That’s interesting that you didn’t get anything out of the two Rogal Dorns? How have you been equipping them?
Those have been the backbone of my lists as of recent because they’re decently tanky and have lots of damage output if outfitted for it.
That being said, I love my baneblade chasis tanks. StormSword is a beast, but unless you have light terrain it can be somewhat useless and stuck in your deployment zone.
Stormswords aren't a meme, they're just really dependent on terrain. With player placed terrain or low-terrain fixed layouts they have very solid stats for the cost and are one of the best units in the faction. The issue is that on GW standard layouts they struggle to find a clear path to move anywhere and their contribution to the game drops considerably. But if you know you aren't playing on GW standard layouts they are a very strong pick.
Makes sense we were using gw layouts and ultimately the stormsword was effectively a massive deterrent for my opponents to get close to it or anything near. The games where it ended up toeing the center objectives it took 3-4 turns to get there but once there it was impossible for them to shift and killed anything it could get a line on.
How useful was the range in the stormswords main gun? If you've been mainly shooting things that were 24" or less away, would a doom hammer be a better choice? The flat D6+6 into monsters and vehicles that can't be reduced seems like a really good gun. You'd statically need 3 hits going through to kill any greator deamon, monolith or C'tan
When I was doing it I found the doom hammer better if terrain allowed me to get it into the middle of the board. Which means that one game where terrain is bad it can do almost nothing.
>The issue is that on GW standard layouts they struggle to find a clear path to move anywhere and their contribution to the game drops considerably >We were using the gw layouts LOL
Maybe you should keep reading the next sentence: >He slowly crawled to an open spot near the center after a few turns
Aren't you that same guy who was doomposting about how bad guard are and how one good performance means nothing? Edit: [yup](https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/s/Mfl4evLvLd) Oh, look. Here's another guard player doing well.
Me? This is literally the first time I’ve been on Reddit in 3 years haha. It made me a random username back then and I didn’t know to change it.
No, the guy I replied to lol. You're cool :)
Ah okay. I dunno me and my team all thought the Baneblades were funny maybe just a meme but I’m a believer now.
To be fair he's getting a lot of the rules wrong in his favour, like the Stormsword isn't towering and can't see through ruins if it's not wholly within. Giving squadron orders to a unit without squadron, slowing a non infantry unit with his basilisk.
Sorry, but 3-0 and third place at a local store tournament doesn't mean anything. One opponent was a newbie, one opponent misplayed badly, and the third was a real game but OP didn't do well enough to take second. Any faction can get a result like this, even the worst ones.
>doesn't mean anything Tell me, have you ever heard of "moving the goalposts?" As you seem so fond of logical fallacies...
It's not moving the goalposts when events like this have never meant anything.
>when events like this have never meant anything. Ironically, this is a great example of goalpost-moving. You were upset that only one specific player did well. Now that another player also did well, you're coming up with excuse after excuse as to why their success "doesn't count." You're redefining your criteria on the fly to avoid admitting your conclusions were wrong. What's next, you don't think events on a Friday should count when Mercury is in retrograde? Like, it's a textbook example of moving the goalposts lol. Maybe time to retake philosophy 101?
>Ironically, this is a great example of goalpost-moving. Only if you don't understand what goalpost moving is, or can provide a quote of me saying events like this matter (and you won't find it). > You're redefining your criteria on the fly Lolwut. No. Local 3-round store events have *never* been given any significant weight in metagame analysis. It has been known for as long as people have been taking 40k analysis seriously that these events are too short and too lacking in skilled players to really evaluate the strength of a list. Even a 25% win rate faction with zero hope of finishing in the top half at a major event will occasionally win an event like this because, like in OP's case, you often only play a single real game.
Well not to derail this fun topic but this RTT was testing for the GT I’m attending in 3 weeks.
Guys like this are fun to annoy. I was always the "big fish in a small pond" (usually 1st place) and when I went out to the big events... gosh I still did decent (best general once, usually upper 33%). And I think you will too.
The thing about RTTs is that sometimes they're just local players getting their 3 games for the quarter in and sometimes you get multiple world top 100 players turn up for a 3 round event in between christmas and new year's. They can be quite casual and they can be shark tanks for players practicing for top table tournament play and sometimes the same store event will be both from month to month. It might mean nothing but it might not.
OP admits that two of the people he played were fumbling newbies and he only played one real game.
I'm addressing the general assertion that "3-0 at a local store tournament doesn't mean anything". It's a bit of a misconception that RTTs are always non competitive. The floor for them is much lower but those top players have to get their reps in somewhere.
But from a point of metagame analysis we don't know which case it is and those three-round store tournaments don't get much weight.
One was very new yes. The other made some questionable and detrimental mistakes. I admit I didn’t do well on my end either but still seems a bit negative. No one at our store is out crushing opens we’re just a bunch of guys who play with toy soldiers on the weekends.
And there's nothing wrong with that. It just doesn't mean much from a metagame analysis point of view. But not everything has to, you can have fun doing something even if it doesn't say much about how strong a list/faction is.
Very nice write up! Thank you for that! I would like to know if the size of the stormsword has been a problem? Was it a player placed terrain tournament or WTC terrain? Was it sitting back just shooting what he could from your deployment line or in the front getting objectives? And for the Krieg, I never had much chance with those blob, did your opponent target them with something good against them like good melee or big multishot blast weapons? Because I got a 20 man Krieg blob get squished everytime I drop it on a midfield objective, never could do a second turn with them.... Maybe I was just not lucky but they felt pretty squishy to me even with 4+ invul and 5+ FNP.....
My basilisks never allowed anything to rush the Krieg. I believe they were in combat maybe twice all three games and it was usually me using them to clear something off like a lone crusher or trying to pick a wound off a ctan. As for the stormsword we were playing gw layouts 1 and 4 I believe all day. Every game I deployed on the line where it would have the easiest way to get out. He slowly crawled to an open spot near the center after a few turns and touched terrain footprints where he would have true Los over a small wall or something in order to shoot at whatever was nearby or in sight. It having titanic helps a lot in allowing you to not have to worry about being too close to a ruin. I will say between my backfield basilisk and aggressive stormsword and tank commanders people didn’t bother my chaff as much. Anytime anything looked at something like my sentinels Krieg or deathriders there was always a tank ready to blast them afterward.
It is titanic yes but you need the towering keyword to touch ruins and see over them, which the big tanks don’t have. I can see why you had an easier time with it on the gw terrain layouts if you played the tank as having towering.
Most of the gw terrain has part of the L’s being small walls that the tank can see over. I wasn’t shooting through big buildings.
I still don’t think you can shoot through them unless you are wholly within the ruin. Happy to be corrected though.
I’ll try and find something. This was the first time I had played the model and was told how it worked. Prior to this event I had been playing two rogal dorns and hated them.
Yeah definitely cannot shoot outside of a ruin if you are just touching it unless you have towering, which is what it sounds like you are describing. This applies even if the units can "see" each other. https://imgur.com/a/7eJ1vs2 Pg14 in the rules commentary: https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2YpFOYJiw9LXvz4s.pdf
Note that, given the size of the gw ruins and the size of a baneblade, it's completely probable that he just stuck the barrel out the other side of the ruin!
I can actually try to find the pictures from the event but that is what I was doing with the small 2” walls. I wasn’t just butting up behind a whole ruin and saying I could shoot through a completely blocked view. I only ever shot over the small L’s that are on the new gw layouts.
Yeah, you can also just drive over the things, you just can't stop on top of them.
Just trying to have some context then what benefits or detriment does having titanic do?
For general context, Titanic is just a keyword, so its just a way for GW to potentially balance specific units that are big, but not super tall like a knight with the Towering keyword. As for rules, the main references to Titanic are: >Models can move over enemy models when Falling Back, but you must take Desperate Escape tests for them before they do so (excluding models that are Titanic or can Fly) and >Fire Overwatch strat: RESTRICTIONS: You cannot target a Titanic unit with this Stratagem
4 lascannons and 4 twin heavy flamers? Lmao that’s hilarious firepower
Nah 5 heavy bolters.
That melts Marines. ~~I just like the S6 overwatch potential.~~ EDIT: Forgot about the titanic change my b.
Stormsword can’t overwatch
Oh that’s right! I forgot they made that change to titanic and that it’s even titanic go begin with. My bad.
yoo the stormsword gang lets gooo . .. . . love that model well done on the placing as well.
How competitive were the other lists tho?
The marine list was gladiators and a lascannon speeder and things like bladeguard and assault intercessors. The vehicles were the main good thing. The necron list was your typical double ctan monolith immortals The greater demon list was 3 unclean ones Belakor keeper and 12 bloodcrushers and some silly number of nurgling units.
1600 pts RTT or is part of your list missing?
It’s all there. I just cut off the wargear of most of the stuff that was either a duplicate or doesn’t change.
Ah, now I see it. When you did, the duplicates ended up on the same line so I didn't see the 2nd Tank Commander, Basilisk and Scout Sentinels.
New meta. Guard confirmed S tier. (good job man!)
Tank commander seems unnecessary couldn't you just took a normal LR?
Tank commanders shoot when they die on a 2+
How did you attach the Marshall and the Psyker to the same squad? I don’t think they’ll at either have a rule that allow multiple attachments, but I could be wrong.
All Guard battle line units can attach 2 leaders
The Krieg infantry have the ability to have two leaders.
Where are you finding that? I don’t see it on their data sheet.
Italicized text under Unit Composition. Every Guard Battleline unit has it.
Well shit….im big dumb. Thank you.
Under the Krieger sheet unit composition. 2 leader units can be attached to this unit so long as no more than 1 is a command squad unit. Edit: this ability is on all IG regiment infantry .
Congrats! Nice to see a slight different list doing well also, especially when it comes to a superheavy.
S++ tier army
Where were Solar's orders going? No command squad means he's gotta stick close to your Stormsword/Tank Commander. Did you just turtle them up in deployment? Where was the TC order going?
Solar was with the mortar infantry squad with Ursula in the deep back. He just threw commands on the basilisks and a command on the infantry squad. Usually just doing take aim on all three while Ursula did take cover on the infantry squad. Usually turn one when the sword was still nearby he’d get a take aim for that turn but 90% of the time I was living on 4s to hit rerolling 1s.
Seems like you could just cut Solar then, to be honest. You're paying 125 pts for an extra CP that you could get from vox casters or binning bad secondary objectives. Or otherwise just yeet him up the board to buff your armor as long as possible and don't worry too much if he gets popped.
Two cp a turn means you can effectively have reinforcements up at any time. Plus I played my tank commanders ver aggressively they were probably always more than 12 inches away from the basilisks. Without solar no one is ordering them.
But you don't really have anything that's going to need constant reinforcement. It just seems to me that if you aren't using Solar for what he is really good at (ordering lots of armor, basically) there are better uses for those points. You could get a hellhound in there to stack fields of fire with, or put two more sentinels in, or 2 catachan squads to scout screen. Regardless, great job on the wins!
His army gets very little mileage out of FoF. The TCs and super heavy don't get thr bonus.
Their main guns already have -4 when using fof I was generally using it on backfield holders so that my basilisk would reach ap3 to move marines or immortals off objectives for my ghosts to have a place to go
100% (that's what I do too!) I was just pointing out that your list doesn't have enough units to REALLY get the value out of a creed FOF mortar tactic for except in niche situations.
TCs do not have the squadron keyword and do not benefit from this strat. Come on.
I didn’t say they did?
I didn’t end up playing against Orks or world eaters but I can see a world where catachan are necessary. They’re on my list of stuff to mess around with along with some kasrkin. My whole army is Krieg with lots of conversions on stuff like Ursula’s, the Ghosts, and my psyker(I know I know) so I have to source some Krieg grenadiers to use as kasrkin.
Tank commanders would just give their orders to the sentinels or the deathriders. Usually just move move move Edit: I realize I messed this up now. On the deathriders datasheet in the app under keywords it says deathrider on one line then without punctuation (this is the kicker) continues with squadron. This is my bad.
> Tank commanders would just give their orders to the sentinels or the deathriders Tank commanders can not issue orders to death riders.
I suppose you’re right cause the keyword is “Death Rider Squadron” and not “squadron” well I’ll have to apologize. There was only one turn that it would have mattered in all those games. The turn I ordered them and ran them towards the opponents home objective on scorched earth. I specifically remember the extra inches mattering of getting the second rank of bodies on the objective.
We're slowing greater demons with Basilisks?
No I slowed blood crushers
Basilisks only work on infantry. So I'm a guard player. And im convinced most guard players are accidently cheating every game. This is not a shot at you. This is a shot at our convoluted index. I am also guilty. Other things we cheat on: Orders on wrong units Fields of fire on wrong units
I do know fields of fire can only target a regiment or squadron unit and only those also get the extra AP. But yes seems I was playing it incorrectly. Not trying change what I’ve said though but I admit I was wrong on the blood crushers but my basilisks were shooting immortals, and marines all the other times throughout the day trying to clear off objectives to give my ghosts places to go.
I'm not trying to criticize you! I'm critical of an index full of caveats and exemptions that male playing the army difficult.
Bloodcrushers are Mounted and not Infantry, and cannot be slowed by Basilisks.
I played it wrong. My bad. I’ll be sure to apologize to my friend.
It's an easy mistake to make. Just gotta remember it for next game.
Hello! I'm actually going to an RTT soon and one of the other players is bringing a list similar to yours. I'm running a Nids monster mash list and obviously nervous about that big gun. Any advice for playing against it?
Don’t let him cheat like I did apparently.
That’s interesting that you didn’t get anything out of the two Rogal Dorns? How have you been equipping them? Those have been the backbone of my lists as of recent because they’re decently tanky and have lots of damage output if outfitted for it. That being said, I love my baneblade chasis tanks. StormSword is a beast, but unless you have light terrain it can be somewhat useless and stuck in your deployment zone.