In the Era of the Beast, ferocious monsters dominate. First among these behemoths are the Dragons of the Stormcast Eternals, fearsome fire-breathing beasts that will be joining your army in time for Christmas! The Stormdrake Guard have actually even turned out to be a little too good – so before they’re released into the world, the Warhammer Age of Sigmar design studio has decided to rebalance their points values in Matched Play.
Everyone is incredibly excited because they are dragons and some of them have Stormcast Eternals riding them, and they are all awesome. But with the disruption to global shipping, the Stormdrake Guard are being released later than originally planned – which gave the Warhammer Studio extra time to playtest the power of all-dragon lists. As it turned out, they could absolutely steamroll certain armies in a single turn of fire and fury, if they had a few above-the-odds dice rolls.
This is good news for the beleaguered forces of Order as they crusade to retake the Mortal Realms, but not so great for everyone else. At the end of the day, Warhammer should be a fair and fun challenge for everyone involved, so the Warhammer Studio has decided to increase the points of the Stormdrake Guard for matched play.
This change is mainly aimed at armies looking to take dragons exclusively, in order to make these gorgeous miniatures as fun to play against as they are to look at. Those of you who run Stormcast Eternals forces with a mix of units shouldn’t feel a huge impact, but if you do take an all-dragon army, you can pack in eight Stormdrake Guard in a 2,000-point list with Krondys, or nine with a Drakespawn Templar on Stardrake, and a still-impressive 10 if led by a Knight-Draconis.
“As you can imagine, the pandemic caused numerous challenges, not least the unexpected delays on new releases,” explains the Age of Sigmar team. “We decided to make the best of the delayed release of the Stormdrake Guard by running additional playtesting to make sure they entered the competitive landscape at an appropriate level. “They are very exciting to play with – incredibly mobile, with powerful shooting and great “alpha strike” potential, and these strengths are amplified in an all-Stormdrake roster. Our team tested these focused lists against many competitive rosters, and we found that when the dice fell in their favour, Stormdrakes were too dominant. We have proactively adjusted their points cost to more accurately reflect the impact they can have on the table, while preserving the flexibility in list-building.“
We’re announcing this change right now because we want you to be able to plan your army and your purchases ahead of time – and not end up with the wrong number of dragons for any reason.*
These points values are immediately valid, and the changes will filter through on Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App in the next few days.
The Warhammer Studio has also been working on a Balance Update much like the recent Warhammer 40,000 Balance Dataslate. This is expected to land in December, with a focus on boosting units that currently aren’t seeing quite so much play on the tabletop.
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* It’s important to note here that you can play Warhammer Age of Sigmar at game sizes way beyond 2,000 points, so there is really no such thing as too many dragons.