Hello everyone !!

Welcome to the rule review of the Stormcast Battletome. SE are the main protagonist in the fluff, releases and rules. Thus they have an enormous Battletome boasting 192 pages (English version).

Atia already did the fluff for them so I just say they get 100 pages of fluff and 100 pages of rules.

So what is changing for the SE in this new Battletome ? What are the effect of the 2.0 ? what bring the sacrosanct chamber ?

I am will try to answer all these questions by looking first at old SE units in this Battletome and then will look at the Sacrosanct Chamber.

Let's jump right in !

Older units in this new Battletome

Allegiance Abilities and other bonus

Allegiance Abilities

Substantial change in this section !

First, the Scions of the Storm rule doesn't need a roll anymore but happen at the end of the movement phase. Except this, it's identical as it still count as your movement for the phase and the models must be set up more than 9” away. Also note that if you didn't deployed at the start of the 4th turn they count as lost.

Shock and awe : -1 hit roll against friendly SE that were set up on the battlefield during the same turn.

Stormhosts : 8 hosts you may choose from that add each: 1 ability , 1 command ability, 1 command trait that you must use and one artifact of power you must take,

Exemple for

Celestial Vindicators :



And for Celestial Warbringers









Command Trait

Nearly the same as before, the change ensure the compatibility of these Command Traits with the new AOS edition.

Ex: consummate Commander is 1 extra command points on a 4+.



&

Ex: Staunch defender at 1 to save roll to SE units in 9” but have to be wholly within. (bigger range but with the new wording.)



Let's move on

Artifacts of Power

7 types of Relics !

-Weapons



Nothing really exiting here, just the usual stuff.

-Armor :

No magic armor in the list grant +1 to sv but there is a dispel shield that grant 1 extra dispel attempt and it's good !

-Artefact of the Tempest.

A bit of everything, I like the Luckstone that allow to change a dice result to anything you want (only for hit, wound save roll that affect the bearer). But there is not much to say !

-Standards (only for totem hero)

One very good allow to re-roll run and charge wholly within 12”



-Mystic Lights

Reserved to the heroes that have a Lantern.



The last 2(staves and scrolls) are reserved to Lord Arcanum and Knight Incantor and will be in the second part of the review.

Prayers

Prayers are like spells as you can the attempt the same one only once per turn even if you have multiple priest with the same prayers.

But you can't Dispel them !

All prayers succeed on a 3+, only Bless Weapons need a 4+

Abjuration work on a 3+ but require to roll for the dispel as well, pretty terrible if you ask me :/

Mount traits

6 tables of 3 traits so 18 mounts traits !! And some of them are super powerfull !!

Old Warscrolls and Battalion

Battalion

Each Chamber have his own Chamber Battalion composed 3-4 Battalions for huge battle.

Then each chamber have 2 to 3 Battalion composed of units of his own chamber.

There are 22 Battalion to choose from and all with matched play costs.

All the Battalion have been updated to AOS2 and use command points & “unmodified rolls” ,

A good example would be, Lord of the storm ! generate command points each turn (on a 4+)

Warscrolls

Image of some interesting Warscrolls in the new Battletome.













I am not going to comment on every Warscrolls but you can observe a few important changes. Command abilities usable in other phase than Hero. Named characters reserved to the Hammer of Sigmar host but with generic Warscrolls available. Lots of wholly within and unmodified hit/wound rolls.

That's it for the old stuff, Let's starts on the new sacrosanct chamber !!

The Sacrosanct Chamber

Bonus and abilities then Warscrolls,

Bonus and abilities

Lord arcanum and Knight Incantor have acces to specific items, staves and Scrolls.

Both category have 3 options each.

Staves

Each one of them is interesting have could see some use. One is once per game +1casting +1mw, the second is once per game choose a caster in 12” and he can't cast this phase. Third one is -1 to hit if casted a spell.





Scrolls

3 one time use item nothing special to say (and lost the image^^)

Now that we have a complete Battletome with a large amount of relics choices , I think going back to a points cost for magic item would be a good idea. And maybe even for trait. It's really hard to even have 6 balanced choices how could you hope for 20+ relics to be balanced between them.

Mount trait





Dracoline mount have a super strong trait, granting +1 to hit to Dracoline units while they are wholly within 9” and it combo perfectly with his command ability ^^

Spells Lore

2 spells lore are inside the new SE Battletome, Lore of the Storm and Lore of Invigoration.

Lore of the storm have 6 spells and “Cannot be cast by units of Evocators” (useless mention as Evocator Warscroll say can only cast Empower)

Most interesting spells in the lore of storm are :

Lightning Blast is 1d3 to closest visible enemy “NO RANGE LIMIT” so you can cast it turn 1 ^^,



Stormcaller against army with a lot of heroes and small units.



Invigoration Lore have 2 very strong spells :

Sexy time !! The last 2 are super duper good

Sacrosanct Chamber Battalion

3 new Battalion are available all 3 with very good bonus !!

see by yourself ,

Yea image cut is not perfect ^^ but you can still see the important part :D

1)+1 to casting roll is great and you can pile this sort of bonus to +3 easily to start casting Arcane Missile doing 1d6 Mortal wounds (SE caster get a special rules that say 1d6 dmg if casting is 10+)

ex : This battalion + Celestial Warbringer command+ Stardrake = +3 to casting already ^^

2)Re-rolling those short range Ballista shots with the +1 from the Lord Ordinator. (4attack at 4+ with RR dealing 1d6 hit each)

3) This one is crazy ^^ you can have 2 Evocators units cast Empower on 2 Sequitors units granting them reroll to hit and wound and then you can channel into the shield to reroll save ^^

Sacrosanct Chamber is super strong but all models cost a lot of points. I guess it should make them balanced (I hope ^^).

Warscrolls



















Conclusion

This new Battletome is a beast ! Huge number of rules, options, traits, items, battalions...

The new sacrosanct chamber is really well made and promise a large number different list. If you include the Realm selection, the Endless Spells, the Battleplan you get a real good depth.

/cheers.

bob.

Sorry for the delay, but the start of the holiday reduced my blogging time ^^