Jstove here with a buyer’s guide for starting Stormcast Eternals, the poster boys of Age of Sigmar. Check out all the deals that are out on the shelves.
Age of Sigmar 2.0: How To Buy Stormcasts, Cheap
Let’s break down the Start Collecting boxes as well as some units to jump on and others to stay away from.
Liberators- Vandus Hammerdaddy and the fatties
If you want to build a super elite army with the lowest model count possible and only use the biggest freight train units you can get your hands on, then you want to use Liberators as your minimal line. The combination of their cheapness, durability, and ability to step up and swing on fatties with Lay Low the Tyrants is the support you need. Especially for the fat dragon rider dudes and buff big weapon dudes that you want to spend the bulk of your points on. Going with this choice, my top pick for starting your army is the START COLLECTING THUNDERSTRIKE BROTHERHOOD BOX. Here’s why-
- It comes with two units of five Liberators to fill up your troop commitment.
- It comes with VANDUS HAMMERHAND, who is a must-have general for any super elite small model count army. Vandus projects a 24” fearless bubble that will make your units immune to morale. You won’t get punished and have to lose expensive models if you brick a die roll in the morale phase. Hammerdaddy saves your fat units that might only have 2 or 3 really huge models in them that could easily crumble to morale on one bad run of dice rolls.
- Once you’ve got Thunderstrike Brotherhood, pick up five more Liberators somewhere to finish off your troop commitment. Then add fat heroes, dragon riders, and buff badasses to your heart’s content to make your A-Team list.
Vanguard Hunters- All in on the big box
To start with hunters, you’re going to want the VANGUARD BROTHERHOOD BOX. This fat box contains a lot of the starter units you need for your minimum commitment to a super fast and aggressive army with deployment tricks. To finish out the troop commitment you’ll need five more hunters. After that, I recommend adding in more Raptor units to finish out the warscroll.
Because Raptors are pretty strong shooting units and their warscroll isn’t bad. This whole box is actually ideally set up to start you on the road to using all the warscrolls available to the Vanguard chamber and combined, they’re pretty spicy.
Another great pick up for vanguard players is NEAVE BLACKTALON/KNIGHT ZEPHYROS. The Zephyros is just a slightly weaker version of Neave that uses the same model, but with the helmet instead of her naked head. Neave and the Zephyros are both murder stick chainsaw glass cannon characters with a ton of attacks and a powerful synergy ability. When a lord Aquilor or Pallador Cavalry from this box uses their ability to teleport across the table, Neave/Zephyros is allowed to tag along.
- Pick up five more Hunters (grab the Sanson’s Farstrider box, it’s cheap). Then pick up some more Raptors because they’re great. Then grab Neave and friends.
Sacrosanct Starter Box
Since the units available in the starter box are such badass hosers and are super cheap, starting off with Sequitors isn’t a bad deal. Sequitors themselves aren’t slouches. The Celestar Ballista actually hits like a truck and the Knight Incantor is the first and only low-budget Wizard in the Stormcast army. This makes her a super utility character that can always find a home in your army no matter which flavor of Stormcast you choose.
Add in a Lord Ordinator, and it unlocks a warscroll that makes your shooting phase super spicy. The only problem with the starter box is that some of the units are under strength and require reinforcements to be playable. When you try to use an understrength unit in AOS, you get punished severely for it. Because you still pay full price for the minimum unit despite having fewer models.
- First, take your starter box and split it down the middle with a buddy or sell off the Nighthaunts.
- Grab the Easy to Build Sequitor box to get yourself up to ten Sequitors, then find another five somewhere on eBay or grab more of them to get your battle line commitment.
- Get a Lord Ordinator to unlock the badass warscroll that makes the ballista super dangerous. This warscroll requires a unit of Castigators, a Ballista, and the Ordinator. (All of them come in the box except the Ordinator) If you’re going to run any of these units, you should buy the other two. Never run these guys outside of the warscroll, it’s way too much heat to miss.
- The Evocator unit is understrength. If you want to use it, reinforce it with two more models. You can get them for $8 each in a getting started pamphlet available at GW.
- The Castigators have five models but it’s a three model unit, so you’re one short of having 2 units. Find a spare Castigator somewhere, or just ignore the remaining odd Castigators. Castigators are a value-priced shooting unit, but their most important role is being in a warscroll with the Ordinator and the Ballista.
Models that are always Fun to Add
Celestar Ballista
The Ballista is easy to get in a cheap ETB box if you want to add another to your starter box army. It’s still best when used with an Ordinator and absolutely murderous in a warscroll. But it’s still cool enough to use alone if you have to.
Vanguard Raptors
Vanguard Raptors are a super effective shooting unit. They cost quite a bit of points but come with your choice of a brick-shooting sniper-crossbow or a machine gun crossbow that shoots tons of shots.
Their box also comes with Aetherwing Birds that combo with them. These birds can react in your opponent’s turn to block charges and be a speedbump for your Raptors so they can keep shooting whatever they want. They are marginally more expensive in points than judicators, but are also almost half the dollar amount per box.
Knight Incantor
As the only caster in your army book that isn’t a super fat lord or a super fat unit of Evocators, the Knight Incantor is the only middle-of-the-road wizard choice you have available as a support character. The Incantor also has free pick of all the spells available in the book, giving it boundless utility.
Models to Avoid
Celestant Prime
As far as faction leader centerpiece models go, this guy sure is bush league. He’s big, he’s expensive, and honestly, he’s just not as impressive or fun as any of the other faction leader models.
More importantly, the guy is really selfish and only hands out a mediocre bravery buff. Which is crap when you compare it to some of the amazing superpowers that the other Lord choices in your book have.
Judicators
They’re the second most expensive shooting unit in terms of points and they’re 62 bucks a box for 10 of them. For the money and the points, I’d rather just have Vanguard Raptors, who come 3 to a box with their bird friends. Plus you only need 3 for a minimum unit. Unless you’re using some kind of super badass shooting army secret trick, these guys are just outclassed on effectiveness and on the wallet.
Prosecutors
There’s just no reason to ever buy this box. For $74 you get six angel guys. Here’s the problem. two of the start collecting boxes come with three of them, and they were in the first edition starter box too.
They’re probably all over eBay and bits sites as well. There’s no reason to ever buy these guys. You can’t buy a Stormcast box without tripping over these jerks. Furthermore, I just don’t like them. They move 12” and fly, which is great. But there are other units in the army that can move fast and hit hard that I just like better.
Start Collecting! Stormcast Eternals
This box is just bad and should be banned from shops. Anyone who buys this box should be given a refund.
First of all, there are two good start collecting Stormcast boxes, and this is not one of them.
The good ones are START COLLECTING STORMCAST VANGUARD and START COLLECTING STORMCAST THUNDERSTRIKE BROTHERHOOD. This third box is a joke.
It comes with a Celestant on foot, who is good, but not as good as Vandus Hammerdaddy that comes in the Thunderstrike box. it only has five liberators, a hilariously unplayable understrength unit of paladins (They give you two, it’s a five-man unit). Then lastly, 3 of those angel dudes that you can’t go anywhere without tripping over.
Basically, you buy this box for $85 bucks and you still don’t even have enough models to start a 1,000 point army. It’s just a tragedy for your wallet. If you see this box on a shelf somewhere in a hobby shop, grab it and hide it behind literally anything else.
You’ll be doing someone a favor by preventing them from picking it up. I guess they thought that you would get a decent army if you just smashed together this box with a Hammerstrike box to get your minimum 15 liberators.
I’d still never take that deal over the Vanguard box or the Stormcast half of the Soul Wars starter.
