GW News: magic and prayers in #NewAoS

we already have the seraphon as a dedicated anti-chaos faction though... So even that purpose is kinda weak for the SCE..

And yeah, the SCE are too much good at everything... it makes them far too annoying to play against. It makes it far too easy for them to "accidently" win simply cuz every single unit is powerfull enough to be a threat. Most other armies tend to eventually start falling apart when say a general or the big scary monster their tactic revolves around dies...

As for their designs I don't mind em much, I just wish they had more variation. The only things that really distinguish units are their weapons, noone's really using banners or wearing various types of armor so they all look really similar..

 

I agree.

If you ignore the fact that GW pushes Space Marines at us constantly, they are pretty cool. They have a great backstory (especially in the early Horus Hersey books), an interesting philosophical angle (being essentially the good guys even though aren't very good or moral) and are the ideal representation of mankind's defense against the horrors of the 40k universe.

SCE on the other hand are nothing but a cheap knockoff of the SM. They are shoehorned into AoS in an attempt to replicate the success of their 40k brethren. Consequently, they enjoy the same treatment (constant updates and attention) as the originals they were modeled off of. In terms of how successful SCE are in terms of this stratagem, I really cannot comment. You AoS players would know better than I. How often do you encounter them on the battlefield? What is their rate of proliferation in AoS? I would suspect that they probably sell pretty well, but it is likely the case of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Give any other faction that much attention and support and their sales numbers will surely rise. I think you make a very valid point about artificiality of SCE proliferation and as you state, it does seem to be very much forced.

 

I'm not sure if they're a proper "winning" army, cuz despite being fairly overpowered I can't say I've seen any real tournament winning strategy. Basicly they're stupidly difficult to kill and can put out a decent amount of damage with their individual units being self-sufficient. But since they don't have much synergy going on (as if they need it...) they also don't have the option for comboing into something ridiculous which might stop them from just winning everything. There's nothing quite like say a unit of 40 saurus warriors, with a starpriests venom, with a astrolith bearer in a sunclaw host and a scar-veterans Saurian savagery for a ludicris amount of base-attacks, re-rolls, extra attacks and bonus damage.

 

I have one massive issue with the 40k Sm and it might be small to others but to me it kills my want to get any....thats the feet WHY the hell are they all struting boots the size of their chest at some points...

 

On a different note i have issues with sc and do feel they should have been humans blessed with power not the living lightning they are...but some good gs work makes them better. Saw this on Pinterest that looks more human paladin and less sm to me

 

I've seen people use third party sallet helmet heads made for space marine models like that. Saves you majoe Greenstuff work.

There's also a guy who did his with bretonnian helmets in a knight Templar scheme

 

makes em even more space marine though as they're even more superhuman. At least now they're more angels than superhuman.

 

I haven't seen or played many AoS battles but when I was round a GW last, even when there was just me, a GW staff member and another player, that player was a SCE player, so I think they are popular. However, they are not as popular as Seraphon, Fyreslayers, Sylvaneth or Kharadron Overlords because the Start Collecting sets for the first three and the Battalion box for the latter are on the Bestsellers page of the website. The starter set is also there but that is the easiest way into the game for all the new players, while the SCE start collecting isn't there, so I'm guessing that there are less existing AoS players who are interested in SCE than Fyreslayers, Kharadron, Seraphon or Sylvaneth, and that most of the SCE fans are the new players who naturally find the easiest way into the game. The Kharadron SC isn't there either yet, but it is quite new still. I imagine when it has been around for longer, it will become one of the Bestsellers.

I also agree here that they are forced, as GW seem to be releasing new named characters for them at every opportunity, while the only character Fyreslayers have is Fjul-Grimnir and he's part of Shadespire anyway. Also he's got very much the same stats as an ordinary Runefather except the Chosen Axes improve his performance. Also Seraphon only have Kroak and Kharadron only have Brokk Grungsson, badass as he is.

I agree with @Canas here. The SCE seem to be a 'jack of all trades' army where they are powerful but don't have that specialist super-powerful game-winning army build that other armies have. I think they're designed to be an army for new players because they'll forgive new players more easily for making mistakes as they can quickly do something to change it around, while other armies with specialist builds can stomp many enemies but are less forgiving when the player makes a mistake or are against an enemy that is the perfect counter to them.

Probably the main weakness of SCE is their lack of defence against Mortal Wounds, which makes them especially vulnerable to armies like Disciples of Tzeentch and Kharadron Overlords, Sylvaneth being another (I saw a SCE and Sylvaneth alliance take on a pair of Tzeentch armies and get utterly destroyed by the sheer number of Mortal Wounds produced). Armies like Fyreslayers and Daughters of Khaine, meanwhile, have a much greater defence against Mortal Wounds as they have the AoS equivalent of ward saves, which makes them better for taking on armies that spam out mortal wounds than SCE. Daughters of Khaine have an army-wide 6+ Ward Save, while Fyreslayers can have up to 4+ Ward but only their infantry and the Grimwrath benefit from these. Furthermore, these saves counterbalance the less armour these armies have, making them more or less on equal terms with SCE, even though Fyreslayers as an example still have a pretty old book and no warscroll cards (although they did get Allegiance Abilities and relics from the new General's Handbook that has made them stronger in the tournament scene).

 

To me they look less so. They dont have those STUPID looking boots, really if the SM had realistically sized feet i might want to biy them...

 

What is realistically sized for a 8 foot tall Genetically engineered killing machine?

 

Well not disco boots thats for sure lol..dammit those things ruin the modes for me

 

And extremely large foot, encased in a Sabaton that is constructed from a layer of neruo fibre and then at least 2 layers of ablative ceramic steel.

 

Call it what you will, but @Bracnos is correct, they look ridiculous.

 

Ok wait, are we talking about the same models? I'm talking space marines

 

Yes... Space Marines look a bit silly with their clown sized boots!

 

*clears throat*

 

meh, even against mortal wounds SCE aren't terrible. With everyone having multiple wounds, and their ability to ignore battleshock they won't be decimated as quickly as you'd expect. Plus as they don't rely on synergies they don't care much about losing a unit or two.

I think it's more that since they don't have any of the extreme combo's it's fairly easy to remove the one counter they have towards your stuff. The lack of synergies makes it difficult for them to switch tactics once they start to suffer losses as they can't switch the synergy to buff a secondary unit instead of their primary. Mortal wound burst heavy armies can then quickly wipe out their main units and thus break their tactics.

 

Idoneth deepkin revealed. Bald elves, riding sea creatures. Looking forward to picking some of these up for use in my trident realms army

Especially the tortoise