Topic: SOC are they balanced

[Davido]

I've just been to a tourny where a few people had storm of chaos lists. I only played the army of sylvania but found it to be a very hard army. I was just wondering if anyone has any experience with these lists and how the empire is supposed to beat them.

[Elieress]

In my experience, they are "Kinda" balanced... Their strengths and weaknesses do on paper make for a balanced army.

The problem is that these armies are very specialliced. They only focus on one thing, and they do this thing extremely well.

In a normal 1 on 1 battle where you know your opponents race, these armies are fairly beatable, however in a tournament setting, the SOC lists can be tailored to be extremely effective against "All commers" lists.

While your army has to be atleast passable in all phases or aspects of the game to be succesfull, they can often ignore their weaknesses and focus only on their strengths.

They are not unbeatable, nor are they all evenly viable.. Some of them are however extremely good at what they are supposed to do
(the picture in my sig is from a SOC Slaanesh deamon army..  2 units with move 5 and 8 with move 10 leads to a very fast army and fast game... Perfect for a slow player in a tournament  )

[Mike Chung]

An Empire player won last weeks RTT and got a solid victory I think against the Sylvanian player (who happened to massacre me  ).  

It seemed to come down to him driving the tank into Manfred's unit and just holding it there the entire game.  Meanwhile he had his uber unit of knights backed by BSB and Archlector run rampant across the board.

The Sylvanian list with Manfred is very strong.  His damn staff can pop invocation of nehek at power level 11 each turn  .  The grave markers constantly pop out bound spell invocations making them a pain in the butt.

I don't see it any worse than some of the really powerful lists that can be built with the normal books but since he only got a 5 player awarded points on army comp over 4 rounds even after I awarded him a full 2 points for my round, I guess other people disagreed.

I have never faced off against a slayers army though I hear its broken in the extreme.

[Pyre]

I've just been to a tourny where a few people had storm of chaos lists. I only played the army of sylvania but found it to be a very hard army. I was just wondering if anyone has any experience with these lists and how the empire is supposed to beat them.

Depends on which armies your talking about.  In my opinion the only ones truly broken were the Slayers and the Sea Guard, and even those could be beat but were incredibly RPS and no fun to play against.  Middenland, Grmigor's 'Ardboys, and even the Deamonic Legions lists were all playable and really no harder than the lists they came from... ok the Legions were harder than the original daemon armies but that's because pure daemon armies prior to the Legions lists were mostly pathetic.

Oh, and at least in my experience, the Sylvanian list was pretty balanced.  It was just hell on wheels in the hands of the right player.

Pyre

[Fandir Nightshade]

I see the Seaguard as the worst of it all and I am amazed that they don't fare so well in the army ranking. Four Bolt Thrower
4*5 Shadow Warriors
about 40 Seagardist
2 heroes on eagle and 2 mages are a real big pain in the ass...especially if they have an extra shooting phase...also the small army often lets them start the game therefore you have at least three rounds of shooting against you...the shadow warriors and the eagles marchblock so there can be even more...just sick.

[dabber]

Cult of Slaanesh is a high quality list.  Maybe slightly stronger than general DE, but general DE are pretty weak so that isn't a problem.  It has variety, it is different, it encourages interesting games.

The Daemonic Legion is pretty well done, but might be just a bit too hard.  Admittedly its great performances are likely linked to being played almost entirely by veterans, but its pretty damn hard on paper too.  Certainly the Tzeentch flying circus is yet another exploitable loophole in list design.

Grimgor 'Ardboyz and Middenheim are okay lists, they just aren't very interesting.  The new army books make them both largely obsolete.

Sylvannia is a decently designed list that fits in well at tournaments against general purpose lists.  But its extremely easy to design a list to beat Sylvannia, so it isn't balanced.

Archaon's Horde looks okay on paper, but if you dig into it, the only real reason to ever field the list is multiple units of chosen knights.  And multiple units of chosen knights is very rock-paper-scissors.

Edit: forgot Eshin originally
The Eshin list is extremely annoying.  The entire game is about the Master Assasin.  Either he kills enough of the enemy and Eshin wins or he dies early and Eshin loses.  Every game I've played against Eshin he inflicts the vast majority of the army's damage, sometimes he has inflicted literally ALL the damage.  Warhammer should not be so much about one model.

The Errantry list is an overt mistake.  Lets give every unit a free 50 pt magic item!  Yeah, that's a great idea.  Someone wasn't thinking.

Slayers and Sea Patrol are abominations and crimes against the game.  The most one-dimensional and borings lists in the current game, by a lot.  Doomseeker has to be the stupidest balance concept ever ... a 65 pt model that wipes out most infantry units by itself.

[Pyre]

The Errantry list is an overt mistake.  Lets give every unit a free 50 pt magic item!  Yeah, that's a great idea.  huh Someone wasn't thinking.

I forgot about the Errantry List!  That list has the potential to be abused like almost nothing else in the game.  It's just wrong.

Pyre

[Capt.Braddock]

The Lothern SG list wasn't so bad after its initial errata.  But it isn't too fun to play against....  The slayer list is all about the doomseekers....  Honestly, this was a problem until the new dwarf book came out and the slayers there are better.  I don't really see them anymore.  All of them can potentially be really cheesed out though....  They are best used in some type of SoC context, like if your group is running a campaign set then...

I still have nightmares about fighting the Cult of Slaanesh though.... grr..  couldn't touch those guys, way too fast, no fun.

Bottom line, they can be cut-throat in tournies...  But in a friendly context they can be fun.

[Marshal Lucius von Morr]

A mate of mine use to have a Nurgle deamon legion, i constantly played him with my nechrachs , as my prrof of concept games.

If i could draw against the nurgle guys i could win against most others.

[Taishar]

Nurgle Demon Legion is overpowered.  Straight from the mouths of the people who play 'em.  T4+, 5+ or better ward, -1 to hit in combat makes them insanely hard to kill.  D6 + 2 attacks...

Slayer army is fine.  It's extremely paper rock scissory.  Against certain armies it will crush.  Against others it'll stand virtually no chance (mainly shooting armies, wood elves).

Sea guard is the most overpowered list out there in terms of correct abuse/play.  It's nearly impossible for most armies to win against a properly built/played sea guard (4 RBTs, dragon).

Rest are fine.

[Fandir Nightshade]

hmmm the errantry list can also rock big time you can field like...öh 8 lances if you drop the peggies and all the fancy stuff...each lance with a grail knight champ.

[Nightshadow]

Nobody seems to have any comment on the Clan Eshin list?

I loved to play against it, it's so cool to face an assassination army, it really captures the sneaky spirit of the Skaven. Don't think it's very balanced though, under the cover of darkness hurts some armies really hard.

[Fandir Nightshade]

and some others none the bit...the eshin list has no hitting power what so ever....the best thing is slayers against eshin...Slayer are way to powerful against all armies that have close combat only....poor chaos

[dabber]

Oops, I forgot Eshin.  Eshin falls into the bottom ranks of design quality along with Errantry, Slayers and Sea Patrol.  Absolutely absurd concept.  The ENTIRE game is about the Master Assassin.  If he kills enough, Eshin wins; if he dies without inflicting mass damage, Eshin loses.  I have no interest in playing a game of Warhammer that focusses so much on one model.  I've done it several times now and not really enjoyed it.

[dabber]

Slayer army is fine.  It's extremely paper rock scissory.

How can you say both those sentences?  To me, an army that is so rock-paper-scissors is instantly a piece of crap in design terms.  Why play the game, you know the outcome once you see the lists.

[Wyzer1]

Slayer army is fine.  It's extremely paper rock scissory.

How can you say both those sentences?  To me, an army that is so rock-paper-scissors is instantly a piece of crap in design terms.  Why play the game, you know the outcome once you see the lists.

Agreed. Its a crap army list and isn't at all balanced (not necessarily unfluffy though, just unbalanced)

[Taishar]

I meant fine in terms of overall power.  I would never play it.

[Sircyn]

I may as well had not bothered playing when I faced a Slayer list with my VC. My army had beaten every other player on the day to varying extents. My army was utterly helpless against the slayers. It is the only time playing warhammer where I had lost before I had even deployed my army. I just did my best to keep my characters away from his doomseekers and scraped a minor loss.

I'm convinced the SoC lists were a bad idea, they are either not up to much like the Eshin list, or so unbalanced they break the game. It's just not fun facing the seaguard, the slayer list or the CoS list with your basic all comers army. You need to build your army specifically to fight these lists. That is why they should be allowed to die out.

The next week I challenged the slayer player to a game and of course he accepted after his army being virtually indestructible against my standard all comers list. When he got my Strigoi flying circus of rippy stabby doom his greased naked dwarfs didn't last long at all. All he was left with was his doomseekers either floating around or chewing through some of my token infantry units. I still couldn't kill those things, even with my vampires that were killing around 10 slayers a turn between them.

My standard empire army would be in trouble against the SoC lists, though not to the extent of being completely unable to harm them as the undead vs slayer matchup. Even now the SoC lists get me grumpy! 

[Fandir Nightshade]

Jup most of them are to specialized in what they do...the all shooty seaguard or the all close combat monster slayer army for example....also the Sylvania list can hurt so much with Manfred von Carstein.

[lack0fbettername]

When my friend got into fantasy he got in with some dwarfs then jumped to the slayer army in SoC.  Doomseekers gave me fits forever.

Solution to doomseekers in a captain with dawn armor/horse or pegases & lance.  Its been some time sense ive played against the list but i think the doomseekers only do D6 hits against a single model.  With 1+ rerollable was almost invincible and would usaly kill 3-4 doomseekers a game.

Doomseekers are my only problem with the slayer list.  No other model is so much the bane of my empire detachments.