The Warrior Brotherhood is dead. Long live the Warrior Brotherhood!

So AoS has been with us for 18+ months now, most of the rage has gone and everyone is just getting on with enjoying playing whichever game they settled on.  Now GW have given the AoS community it’s first big tester in the form of a new Stormcast book.

Everyone (slight exaggeration, nearly everyone) who had been playing SC had settled into the comfortable Warrior Brotherhood & Azyros formation to drop on top of you and kill what they liked.  It was powerful, though not all conquering and I found it frustrating because it shaped the whole way people had to build their lists.

With the new book having been spoiled all across the internet this week we have a fairly good idea how the book has changed and on the whole it looks like they’ve tried to move away from that which I think is probably good for the game as a whole.  It looks like with the formations which are there we should see a lot of options for different types of build which should make them a more fun and varied army to build and play (with & against).

What I’ve seen of the online reaction is there isn’t too much rage.  There are a few people who have just bought the WB setup and are disappointed that they’ve missed the opportunity to filth it up but on the whole it seems to be considered a positive thing.

This morning the delightful AoS Daily (Bad Dice daily) by Ben Curry talked about an event where players have the choice to run the old or new book as it’s just next week and he’s only really got the WB build painted so this led me to looking about how you could run it effectively under the new book and actually I think there is a list which will run close enough.

For those that don’t know the WB setup ben has been running:

·         2x Azyros (normally)

·         3x5 liberators

·         2x5 judicators

·         2x10 Protectors (paladins)

·         1x9 Prosecutors with Javelins

·         Warrior Brotherhood formation

As the Azyros no longer gives the ability to drop inside 9” it’s relatively less useful these days so ben was looking for alternative characters.  With the many many items, abilities, monster special stuff it looks like there is a way to stack those on a Celestant on Dracoth to make him fairly punchy so feels like a decent little smashy unit and he’s reasonably survivable so good for 3 places of power too.

Next up is the cheaper end of the scale because you still need to fit into 2000pts and keeping most of the army the same means not too many points left over.  I was looking at a Lord Relictor because the new prayers in the book seem like a really useful set of buffs to have available and he’s cheap, if you could squeeze the points a little then the Veritant would be a good option too as he gains a wound, damage 2 and the dispelling ability for 40pts that’s worth it but all depends on whether you can squeeze it in or not as points get tight.

For the main list there is one formation that I feel is core for retaining the WB style list in the form of the Hammerstrike Force:

·         9 Prosecutors with Javelins

·         10 Protectors

·         10 Protectors

This allows the protectors to drop inside 6” of the prosecutors, so overcoming the 9” bubble from the enemy in the style previously achieved through Warrior Brotherhood & Azyros combo.

You then just need to fill out the battleline requirement which could be 3 units of judicators or if you wanted more bodies 2 judicators, 2 liberators can be squeezed in.

 

That gave me a list of:

·         Celestant on Dracoth 220

·         Lord Relictor 80

·         2 x 5 Liberators 200

·         2 x 5 Judicators 320

·         1 x 9 Prosecutors 240

·         2 x 10 Protectors 800

·         Hammerstrike Force 120

Total: 1980

 

An alternative to move this back to a single drop formation would be to wrap it all back in one of the specific chambers, in this case the Celestial Vindicators which requires 1+ Hammerstrike Force but requires 3 paladin units over 2.

·         Celestant on Dracoth 220

·         Lord Veritant 120

·         2 x 5 Judicators 320

·         1 x 5 Liberators 100

·         1 x 9 Prosecutors 240

·         1 x 10 Protectors 400

·         2 x 5 Protectors 400

·         Hammerstrike Force 120

·         Celestial Vindicators 80

Total: 2000

 

What this lacks over the current Warrior Brotherhood is the ability to hold off dropping until the turn you choose, you can do it with the protectors but the rest of the army is either dropping on a 3+ roll each turn using the general stormcast ability or it is starting on the table.