Welcome back to the walkthrough of the Stormcast Eternals Battletome! Today we’re looking at the more specific Artifact options, as well as the Prayers you can use to make your Priests into real force multipliers and threats! Follow into the article for the full look. Check the Tactics Corner for more great articles.
So far we’ve seen Artifacts that are available for every Stormcast Hero to take in a game of AoS. However, there are two more Artifact tables that are only available to a select few Heroes in your arsenal, which we’ll look at now:
Treasured Standards
These are only available to Totem Heroes, which at this point is only the Knight-Vexillor. The Vexillor is already a pretty interesting option, either you use his (slightly nerfed) teleport banner, or you have a one-time massive meteor nuke. He still gives out charge rerolls in a bubble, so he’s a pretty decent support character once you take one of these upgrades:
- Hurricane Banner: Any nearby units can reroll 1s to Run and Charge.
- Not fantastic considering he already gives charge rerolls, but in some cases you’ll roll a 1 and a 6, so getting another option is useful. Also nice for the Run rolls. However, not the best option.
- Lichebone Standard: Non-Hero Stormcast nearby heal 1 Wound per Hero Phase.
- Very nice support item, making those Paladins just that much harder to take down, and making your tarpit Liberators even harder to shift!
- If you want to represent a Chamber that focuses on healing people rather than raw martial prowess, this would be a great way to show that off! Also, the fluff lends itself to an army with close ties to Death.
- Pennant of Sigmaron: When a unit fails a Battleshock roll, on a further 2+ only one model flees instead of many.
- Occasionally this will be decent, but it’s quite situational – anything that will kill enough to force a Battleshock test, especially one with multiple losses, is probably carving you up anyway. Better off taking a Lord-Celestant on Dracoth to stop Battleshocks, or just using Inspiring Presence. There are situations where your whole army will take large losses and you’re not using the Dracoth Lord, but I doubt this Standard will save you very much from that position.
- This is a great option for someone who wants to show that their Stormcast are even braver than the standard fare – when your Heroes are this inspiring, your army is as tough as nails.
So I think the clear winner here is the Lichebone Standard. If you’re running a Knight-Vexillor for support, it’s much more reliable at keeping things alive longer than the other ones. There could be an argument made for the Hurricane Banner if you really really want Run/Charge manipulation, but that’s pretty slim.
Overall, I think these options are weaker than other choices, given that you’re limited to one Artifact (plus an extra for Battalions), unless you’re running lots of footslogging Paladins and don’t care about kitting out your Heroes.
Mystic Lights
Available to Heroes holding lanterns – that is, the Lord-Castellant, Lord-Veritant, and Knight-Azyros – this is another table that has some aura options that you can take in lieu of other Artifacts.
- Shriving Light: Nearby enemy units add 1 (or d3 for Chaos) to Battleshock.
- There’s some decent uses for this, combo with Decimators or the Celestant Prime to really stack up the debuffs and force mass losses! Because it’s an “Add 1” effect, it may also disable the Daemon Icons from bringing units back!
- Narratively, this is a great option for a Hero who uses his lantern to drive evil back with Holy Light!
- Fury Brand: A nearby Hero (or this one) can add an extra attack to a weapon.
- A nice option if you’re supporting a scary hero – a Lord-Castellant near a Lord-Celestant on Dracoth or Stardrake will constantly give him +1 to save and an extra attack, which can be quite powerful!
- A very cool thematic option for Heroes who closely support one another, if you want to represent a tightly-knit command structure, this is a nice option for that.
- Lantern of the Tempest: Enemy shooters have to reroll 6s to hit against nearby Stormcast.
- A very swing-y option. Against shooting armies, especially those with mediocre hitting profiles that rely on mass shots, this can cut the effectiveness of those units by quite a bit. It can also shut down abilities that activate on 6+ to hit! On the other hand, I brought this to a tournament and didn’t go against a single army with shooting units, which made it useless the whole time, so you have to watch out for that haha!
All these options have a decent shot at being useful depending on the way you’re running your army. The Fury Brand is probably the most limited in my mind, and my personal pick is a Lord-Castellant with a Lantern of the Tempest – even though it might not be useful against a full melee army, it can be life saving against a shooting force like Tzeentch or Free Peoples.
Prayers of the Stormhosts
The next section covers Prayer options that your Stormcast have access to. Unlike Sylvaneth, Bonesplittaz, or Tzeentch, we don’t have Wizards to give extra spells to, but this table gives an extra ability to any Lord-Relictor or Lord-Veritant in your army, making them quite good for their points! Additionally, you can use these as well as any other Prayer they have access to, making the Relictor quite good since he can use one as well as heal a unit or zap an enemy.
Unlike Artifacts, these can be taken no matter what else you’ve equipped, so bring those Priests and kit them out!
- Divine Light: On a 3+, you either get to reroll 1s to hit against a select enemy unit, or the opponent has to reroll 6s to hit against one of your units.
- This can be quite good – if there’s something that absolutely needs to die, you can light it up and buff your whole army against it. On the other hand, you can pop it on a strong allied unit and watch them survive even more than they already do.
- Much like the Shriving Light Lantern, this is an awesome thematic pick for an army focused on using holy light to defeat their enemies.
- Bless Weapons: On a 4+, 6s to hit with the select unit generate an additional attack.
- Another great option! While it’s less reliable to go off, you can make a unit with a lot of attacks even stronger. Protectors get 3 swings per model, and popping this on a big brick of 10 or 15 will make them super killy. Of course, buffing up shooting units like Judicators or Vanguard-Raptors is also potentially very deadly, especially since your Judicator Prime will be getting the extra attack on a 5+ with his +1 to hit.
- Bolster Faith: On a 4+, nearby Stormcast don’t have to take Battleshock.
- A 50% chance to get area Inspiring Presence isn’t too bad. If you really need the area effect, the Dracoth Celestant is probably better, but a Relictor or Veritant is cheaper and doesn’t need to be your General to get this, so it’s a tradeoff.
- Lightning Chariot: On a 3+, teleport a unit (has to be within 3″, so cluster up) up to 24″ away, 9″ away from an enemy.
- Wow, wow, wow. Free teleports all around! 9″ away is still a downside, since it’s a rough charge distance, but it’s much quicker than moving your 4″ or 5″ move everywhere. Getting a blob of Paladins or a wall of Liberators up the table is a big deal, and something that many people won’t expect.
- Stormhosts with an even more focused theme of Lightning Strikes could make this really cool in a Narrative game or campaign.
- Abjuration: On a 2+, the Priest can unbind a spell per turn as if he were a Wizard.
- Not great in my book. Very unreliable, since the opponent has to have a Wizard, and then you have to be in range, and then you have to beat them in a dice-off. And the Veritant already can unbind naturally, so it’s only useful on a Relictor.
- A Relictor with a history of hating Wizards could make use of this in a campaign, however.
- God-King’s Aspect: On a 4+, nearby enemy units add 2 to Battleshock tests. On a 1 to pray, the Priest takes a wound.
- Potentially very powerful – we have other Bravery modifiers in the army, so you can potentially get something down to a +7 on their Bravery roll if you go heavily into it. However, it’s very unreliable, and other times it won’t be that useful.
Very nice options here! There are plenty that are fluffy, powerful for tournaments, or just fun in general. I think from a competitive standpoint, Lightning Chariot and Bless Weapons are the ones you’ll see the most, but Divine Light is a very solid option as well.
The one I’ve fallen in love with is a Lord-Relictor with Lightning Chariot. Not only can he pop a unit around the board, he can also use it on himself. He’s not too bad in combat, and he can jump into cover for a 2+. Then, you can put him right into range for a Heal or Lightning prayer, giving you a pretty unprecedented 36″ range on his Lightning Storm power! It’s always been a baller prayer, hampered by the range. Now, you can jump up the board super far and potentially hit a unit with d3 Mortal Wounds and -1 to hit, and that’s awesome! Or pop up and heal a hurt buddy.
I also like the idea of a Lord-Veritant with the above Lantern of the Tempest hanging out with a unit of Judicators or Vanguard-Raptors. He protects them from shooting by forcing rerolls of 6 to hit, and then buffing their shooting to insanely massive levels with Bless Weapons! The Veritant is still not the best model in the book, but the support he can give is potentially quite good.
Whew, that’s a lot of options to consider, and we’re still not done! Next time we’ll cover the Mount Traits that you can use for certain Heroes.
Overall, this book has a huge amount of personality and customization that you can put into your Heroes! We’ll for sure see more Lord-Relictors out there to take advantage of the Prayers, but I can also see more Lord-Castellants and perhaps Knight-Azyroses to use some of the sweet Lantern auras. With a total of 24 Artifact options, you’ll have a lot to consider!
Let us know down in the comments what your favorite Artifacts and Prayers are from this book and what you’ll be using in future games. And of course, get Heroes to kit out in the store! Frontline Gaming sells Games Workshop product at up to 25% off of retail, every day! Frontline Gaming will buy your used models for cash or store credit!
