In this article series we’re taking a look at the Hero options available to each faction, looking at what units they pair with, and talking about the combos available to those units as well as tips for running them solo. You can find the rest of our Start Competing Stormcast Eternals Articles here.
There are, count ‘em, thirty different hero warscrolls in the Stormcast Eternals battletome. I’m going to level with you; that’s too many. There are really two issues going on with Stormcast hero selection: One is that the internal balance here is a mess and most of these heroes won’t see meaningful competitive play, and the second is that because Stormcast are subdivided into more keywords than any other faction they are among the most affected armies by the regiment system in AoS4. Stormcast armies want access to a broad spread of unit types, but the game encourages you to keep things lean. For these reasons, competitive AoS4 listbuilding with Stormcast has coalesced around a limited number of powerful heroes whose regiments give you access to everything.
Regiments
For regiments, Stormcast units are divided up between Warrior Chamber, Extremis Chamber, Ruination Chamber, and Vanguard Chamber. On top of this, there’s Gryph-hounds who sit totally separately and Stormcast Exemplar, which is the keyword for heroes who can slot into other heroes’ regiments. Who can take what is largely consistent with their own keyword. The really key stress point here is the Vanguard Chamber, who have access to some incredible units but just one Vanguard hero, who is rubbish. This is why heroes with access to any Stormcast Eternals unit are so important, and why the number of them has been creeping up with every battlescroll, which is very welcome for listbuilding variety. Those “any Stormcast Eternals” heroes are:
- Celestant-Prime
- Ionus Cryptborn
- Karazai
- Krondys
- Lord-Celestant on Stardrake
- Lord-Commander Bastian Carthalos
- Iridan the Witness (both varieties)
- Tornus the Redeemed
- Yndrasta
You’ll notice that the overwhelming theme of this list of heroes is: big, expensive and named characters. This in turn drives a lot of players into taking Praetors to protect their investment and you can start to see the way the armies begin to write themselves.
Celestant-Prime, Hammer of Sigmar
Of your mid-range hitty heroes, prime time is really the best. There’s not too much in the way of gimmick to the Prime anymore, it can reduce the distance it has to be away from enemies when deploying from the celestial realm by a number of inches equal to the turn number-1 (so 9” turn 1, 8” turn 2, so on), but to be honest, it moves 12” and has no other charge bonus rules; it might as well start on the table. It’s a shame that the Prime doesn’t come with the 3d6 charge that other similarly be-winged Stormcast get, but what you do get is 10 wounds with a 5+ ward and the best melee profile of any mid-range combat hero. In fact, the crit mortals on damage 4 attacks can push the Prime beyond even Karazai’s average damage into targets with high armour saves. The inbuilt ward is nice as it means you save points on Praetors. The Celestant-Prime is a good unit, and you don’t see it more because it’s not tough enough to anchor a line like a dragon and also the model is a shocker in this day and age.
Drakesworn Templar
This has a very similar statline to the Lord-Celestant version but sees basically no play because it’s specialised towards anti-monster combat and the Celestant is more all-comers. If you do want to punch monsters then into its ideal target (a hero monster) this does actually do pretty hefty amounts of damage, and just slightly outfights Yndrasta in the same scenario. At 440 this is too close to other, more well rounded units like Karazai, but the basic statline is good enough that it could be one to watch for points drops.
Gardus Steel Soul
A completely average foot hero profile with two gimmick abilities – if Gardus charges he hands out a 12” aura of ward 5+ for Stormcast units, and a once per battle ability in the charge phase to pick 3 infantry units wholly within 6” and give them +1 to charge and attack. Melee infantry isn’t always the best out of all the things Stormcast can do, but as a Warrior Chamber hero Gardus could have a place in the Heroes of the First-Forged army of renown, buffing Annihilators.
Ionus Cryptborn, Warden of Lost Souls
Ionus basically does two things: He’s a big dragon and the only Priest (2) Stormcast have access to. Priest (2) is handy because it lets you rapidly build up points to get off the upgraded bless weapons, which is a huge upgrade, or to more reliably translocate in the enemy hero phase, which offers a nightmare headache for your opponent to think about. Ionus has had a difficult time in AoS4 so far – he’s quite expensive at 400 but doesn’t offer the punch of Proper Dragon, making him a less attractive proposition to take Praetors with, making him much less survivable. Battlescrolls have been tweaking Ionus to give him the Ruination ability, which helps with survivability. Ionus is still probably too expensive and Scourge Iridan is a better all-around buff piece, but he’s getting better and isn’t an unsalvageably bad choice if you want to run him.
Iridan the Witness
Talk about unsalvageable. On release Iridan was abominably bad but with a points drop and change to their regiment to let them take everything, things aren’t as bad as they once were. It’s another priest on a mediocre monster with some truly baffling design decisions (Why does the first, named character Lord-Terminos have a worse axe than your common or garden Lord-Terminos? Why is their prayer so bad?).
Scourge of Ghyran Iridan the Witness
Now we’re talking. Scourge of Ghyran gifted Iridan a whole new warscroll with a ground-up reworking of their abilities and it’s so much better. A much better melee profile, a passive buff to the Ruination ability to ignore abilities, a prayer for +1 rend. This is a warscroll you can actually build around and it’s a good value-add for the already strong Ruination units. Very solid, though still fairly squishy so you have to be somewhat careful. Some of the more shooting-heavy armies that have arrived recently like the revitalised Kharadron Overlords will very easily remove Iridan.
Karazai the Scarred
The defining model of Stormcast listbuilding in the last GHB. Karazai is big, tough (with the Praetors you staple to him) and gets better in a fight the more damage he takes. With his incredible regiment in the bargain, Karazai has been hard to look past but the loss of the Bodyguard double -1 attack combo has seen him drop off in favour of more generic options or Scourge Iridan.
Knight-Arcanum
The other cornerstone of Stormcast listbuilding. Without dipping into legends or very expensive models, this is really the only choice of hero-wizard that Stormcast have. Thankfully, it’s a good one anyway, as the Arcanum provides bonuses to cast and banish manifestations. Manifestations are really powerful this edition, it’s an uncomplicatedly good warscroll. The only real downside to the Knight-Arcanum is its limited regiment options: just Gryph-hounds and the Warrior Chamber, and no option to take another hero in its regiment. This largely relegates the Arcanum to the hero that brings the Vigilors and Questor-Soulsworn in listbuilding.
Knight-Azyros
Hyper specific in that it wants to buff Prosecutors. The buff is very good: letting the Prosecutors move at the end of any turn, even if they’re in combat. Being able to shift units around is amazing for messing with your opponent’s ability to score. Prosecutors are a good unit as well so why do you never see this? Well, all of the things it wants to do on its warscroll are sat behind 3+ rolls and that just makes it unreliable for how expensive it is.
Knight-Draconis
The poor Knight-Draconis is just a bit rubbish this edition. As a mid-range hero it’s reasonably cheap at 230 and it provides two bonuses to Stormdrake Guard – a really strong unit. Sadly it just doesn’t really make it. 11 wounds is squishy for its points and the model is not worth protecting with Praetors, its regiment is pretty bad and it just gets squeezed out by much more efficient options.
Knight-Judicator with Gryph Hounds
Hear me out. These are sick. Three of these will outshoot a reinforced unit of Longstrikes for 10 points less, don’t require you to jump through hoops to access the Vanguard chamber and Longstrikes have lost their ability to redeploy and covering fire. Part of Stormcast listbuilding is looking for the best shooting option for your army and if want some nice shooting on a budget then two of these can chip quite nicely.
Knight-Questor
The answer to, “What is the worst warscroll in the Stormcast Eternals battletome?” It’s supposed to play with Questor Soulsworn who are really good, but actually provides them with basically nothing and they share an ability that is once per battle (army). Woops!
Knight-Relictor
Stormcast have three little infantry priests who are all very similar but have a different ability to set them apart. The Knight-Relictor gets a neat own-turn shooting phase ability that picks an enemy within 12” and on a 2+ worsens their ward save by 1. It’s niche in its application, though ward saves are relatively common in this edition. The debuff lasts for the turn, so helpful for your multi-phase attackers. That being said, 12” is limiting for a model that otherwise doesn’t want to be on the frontline. All three of these foot priests are basically fine, and it’s a meta call between this and the Veritant.
Knight-Vexillor
Really pretty good, actually! They get to join other heroes’ regiments, so the fact that theirs is terrible doesn’t matter and they don’t cost a drop, which is always handy. Every hero phase the banner picks d3 friendly units wholly within 12” and heals them for d3 and gives +3 control. Control is kind of whatever, but the persistent heal that pops in your opponent’s turn as well is very nice. If you want to double down on protecting a big model this is your second pick after a unit of Praetors.
Krondys, Son of Dracothion
Wizard dragon. Has the same basic profile as Karazai but gets worse in a fight as they’re hurt rather than better. Still, that basic profile is solid and Krondys is happy to get Praetor’d and mix it up in melee. Alongside that, he’s the best wizard in-faction, being power level 2 and getting +2 to cast (but only to cast). That’s handy because Krondys’ warscroll spell casts on an 8 and lets you pick a debuff which will almost certainly be -1 to save. Where Krondys shines is getting out lots of big manifestations, so he plays well with Morbid Conjuration. His rampage is also pretty good, being the old roar rampage to turn off commands on a 3+ for an enemy unit. At the start of the edition it was Krondys that was stapled to every Stormcast army, but his rate of being taken has cooled off as manifestations turned out to be slightly less of the be all and end all that was initially thought, and that people realised Karazai was incredibly powerful. Still, Krondys is a strong choice.
Lorai, Child of the Abyss
The convention of this list being alphabetical does lead to the oddness of this Idoneth wizard appearing before the hero they must be taken with, Neave. We’ll leave discussion of Neave to Neave but Lorai is a Wizard (1) with a warscroll spell that makes the Blacktalons harder to hit with shooting.
Lord-Aquilor
The only non-Neave hero that can bring Vanguard Chamber without bringing every other chamber along for the ride, and substantially cheaper than any unit that does bring every Stormcast in their regiment. That being said, they’re unpopular because the warscroll isn’t very good. They’re a combat hero that’s not very good in combat and can teleport Vanguard-Palladors around. Vanguard-Palladors would probably rather use their 14” run and shoot/charge to be honest. All that being said, some niche builds previously used a cheap Legends hero to bring Vanguard chamber and this is almost cheap enough to warrant that, and the teleport is better looking now that only one Vanguard unit can run and shoot/charge. If the meta shifts away from big monster heroes and this comes down in cost, it could have a place.
Lord-Celestant
Requisite abysmal combat hero. The only saving grace for the Lord-Celestant on foot is that it can quaff the quicksilver draught and pull a unit of warrior chamber infantry in to strike-first with it. Historically, they’ve been the worst target for that particular gimmick, but with grandhammer Annihilators coming down it could be worth exploring.
Lord-Celestant on Dracoth
Abysmal combat hero on an unusual horse. As with the foot variant, this Lord-Celestant can drink the strike-first potion and pull in a unit of Dracothian Guard with it. Concussors are the best at this job. Dracothian Guard are faster than infantry and hit really hard, so this trick is pretty decent. They have to lead their regiment though, so chances are it will affect your drops.
Lord-Celestant on Stardrake
Your classic distraction carnifex. Big and tanky, with good but unspectacular melee output. There are two selling points to the Lord-Celestant version of the Stardrake; firstly that it can hand out +1 attack to other extremis units once per game, and secondly its fantastic rampage where you pick an enemy unit, roll 3 dice and destroy a model for each result that meets or exceeds their Health characteristic. Not amazing into trash infantry or whatever, but being 3 dice and totally bypassing defences gives you pretty reasonable odds to be swallowing troggs and the like whole. You can even just pick a singular infantry hero and have 3 attempts at eating it. These are now more popular than the named dragons as they suffer less from the loss of the old season rules, and can access some of the strong Scourge of Ghyran enhancements.
Lord-Commander Bastian Carthalos
Bastian is fine but kind of unexciting. Previously the cheapest all Stormcast regiment, but that is now Tornus’ job. What you’re getting out of Bastian is all-out attack being free for units within 12” and a deployment phase move for up to 3 infantry units. 250 is quite a lot of points for that level of utility, especially with how discouraged you are from using all-out attack now, and you’re paying for him being unusually tanky and having damage 4. Where Bastian shines is in the Heroes of the First-Forged army of renown, and that’s where you’re likely to see him.
Lord-Imperatant
Once stapled to every Stormcast army and now absolute trash; such are the fickle winds of the design studio. What this unit is supposed to do is let you bring your units on from reserve and make easier charges, what it actually has is a once per battle (army) ability that lets 3 units arriving from reserves that turn make a d3” move. Ignoring all of the restrictions about being only once and only around the Imperatant, the d3 move is piddly and ignores the general problem with melee units arriving from reserve in this edition – your opponent gets to redeploy at the end of the turn and so gets a d6” move reaction to the d3” the hero you have paid actual points for brought.
Lord-Relictor
Second foot priest. This one just straight up has +1 to chant and is therefore the best foot priest, as it does the thing that it is meant to do better than all of the others. The real boon to the +1 is counteracting the -1 you get from chanting in your opponent’s hero phase. The cheekiest move a Stormcast priest can do is banging off a translocation teleport in their opponent’s turn, and this unit is good at it.
Lord-Terminos
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but: Low health infantry hero with an ability to let another unit fight after it has. Fortunately, the Lord-Terminos is pretty good as far as this goes, it can fit in another heroes’ regiment and gets to crit (mortal) on its damage 3 attacks. A Lord-Terminos with the quicksilver draught and 6 Reclusians is a great combination for controlling board space as the Reculsians can be quite tough and quite fighty with crit (mortal) of their own, at a low points investment. To sweeten the deal the Terminos also hands out +3 control to Ruination chamber units, Ruination units come in 3s as standard rather than 5s so sometimes that will matter.
Lord-Veritant
Foot priest number three. This is the cheapest priest and instead of being better at priesting it fucks with enemy wizards. It gets to unbind with power level 1 and so long as its bird dog is alive it gets a 12” aura of -1 to casting and chanting rolls for enemy units. The first effect is a nice way to gain interaction with enemy wizards if you want the priest but also want to keep your drops low, and the second effect is actually pretty powerful – provided you can get the Veritant to within 12” of enemy models that are doing magic. I said the Lord-Relictor was the best priest and that is true, but this is a totally fine option as well.
Lord-Vigilant on Gryph-Stalker
Melee hero on a chickenhorse. It can make Reclusians and Prosecutors fight twice, with the second time having strike-last. That’s a neat ability and both of those units fighting twice are pokey (though Prosecutors are very fragile so may not get as much out of the second fight), but that hasn’t proven enough to make this guy worth it. You run into a too many heroes problem, where you over invest in a unit and it kills the efficiency. If you’re running a block of Reclusians, the Terminos combo is just better.
Lord-Vigilant on Morrgryph
Take all of the bad bits about the Knight-Draconis and take away the good buffs into the bargain. All of these lesser monsters just suffer from the problem that they’re not that cheap and if you want to kill things in AoS4 you reinforce a killy unit and use that instead.
Neave Blacktalon
You get Neave, the Idoneth wizard and a little unit of her companions who are essentially Praetors, granting Neave and themselves a 5+ ward, for 320 points. Pricewise this has Neave competing with the Prime and Yndrasta. Neave is decently fighty with 7 attacks and good rend, going to damage 3 into heroes. The problem is that even into her ideal target the Prime is just doing better damage, and Neave is slow. She can teleport to her companions after fighting, but given they are providing her ward save she’s probably not teleporting very far. It’s a more attractive package outside of Stormcast, where as a Regiment of Renown it picks up fight twice and Neave’s damage really picks up.
Tornus the Redeemed
Makes Ruination chamber units (so Reclusians, realistically) rally more effectively and can hand out -1 to hit in melees he is a part of. Otherwise Tornus is quite squishy and not very punchy for 170 points. He’s been competitively nowhere but has had his regiment updated to be able to take anything, making him the cheapest hero that can do that. Whether this actually makes him viable or if you do still need more juice out of the warscroll itself remains to be seen.
Vandus Hammerhand
A Lord-Celestant on Dracoth with an extra attack that trades out being Extremis for Warrior chamber, has a puny control buff and can’t hold an artefact. Hard pass.
Yndrasta, the Celestial Spear
Ignoring negative control modifiers is bobbins; otherwise Yndrasta is almost tempting but largely falls short of the Prime. 3d6 charge is super handy for a faction that can put anything into reserve and her attacks are decent, really good into her ideal target but unfortunately her ideal target is monsters and they’re just not that prevalent at the moment, not enough to be spending 300+ points on. If your local scene has a weird number of Gargants or Beastclaw players though, go hog wild.
Final Thoughts
With so many choices it can definitely be overwhelming when looking at heroes for Stormcast for the first time, so hopefully we’ve helped you sift through the dross to find what you need. With few options that truly shine on their own at the moment, you’ll find that hero selection for Stormcast is more often than not driven by the needs of the rest of your army concept. Except for Knight-Judicators. Pew pew.
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