8th Ed. stegadon - is it worth the points?

[Xul]

hi guys. although my opinion about the "basic" steg (with giant bow) was not very high in 7th, now it seems it is even less useful in 8th. As you can't stick an ancient steg to a 1K game, your only choice is the basic one. I thought I'll give it a try, just to see if it was any good. it got wasted by a catapult, without really doing anything. I mean the giant bow is mostly useless, as you either march or charge with the beast. it also can't stand and shoot. even when you get to shoot it, with the skink's BS and the -1 for moving, you hit a big ****. and with terror significantly weakened in 8th, the only thing which could be useful about the steg are the impact hits and thunderstomp. however, to use those, you first need to get to the fight, which seems to be very difficult now, if you are facing warmachines. bottom line: it seems to me that the point cost is too high and usefulness really took a hit in 8th. not worth fielding this guy anymore at all. any other views?

 

[vaalnn]

I dropped my EOTG and have been running a regular steg for my last few games in 8th, and to be honest its done awsome in every battle, though I've not played it against any armies with decent war machines.

I agree with you, the bolt thrower is pretty crappy, I'm happy if it gets a few kills with this per game. I usually park it near my slann/TG, hidden behind some scenery if possible, then charge it into anything that charges my slann. Given that your opponent doesn't have a lot of war machines, it's pretty tough to kill.

 

[n810]

So I guess you are facing a lot of gunlines then...
are you using the random senario and terrain system yet...?
these are usualy a big hinderance to gunline type armies.

 

[Xul]

So I guess you are facing a lot of gunlines then...
are you using the random senario and terrain system yet...?
these are usualy a big hinderance to gunline type armies.

terrain isn't so much help, as only hills and buildings can block LOS now (with the "thick" 8th forests ). on top of it, stone throwers can also fire without LOS (although less precise).

 

[n810]

Well big hills and buildings will help,
but mostly I mean in a few of the new
senarios he will actualy have to move
his gunline and not stay bunkered up
in a corner.

 

[Xul]

yes, that might be the case with some scenarios. but we are getting away from the initial question - is the steg worth the points? I say no and would rather take something else for the points. and wanted to check out what do the others think about that. I think other choices are more versatile and not dependent on which scenario you play.

 

[n810]

I think it's the case where a lone steg is prety vunerable and useless,
but several might be worth it, and a big threat.

 

[Haemoglobin]

In my opinion if you want to use Steggies you will have to use several so your opponent has to choose what Stegadon to attack (and probably kill) or divide the attacks. Hopefully they would survive divided attacks. But thats at least 500 points wasted if it doesn't work. In smaller games i wouldn't be fielding them anyways. You're better off with some extra skinks and saurus. Numbers win games in smaller point brackets.

 

[Dubious_wolf]

2500+ point games multiple stegadons can be mean, especially when used as the hammer in a hammer and anvil strategy with your saurus blocks. Right now I'm runnin 2 stegs and 2 sblocks of 25 sauras. this is further supported by 2 single man salamander teams, and they have been consistently been giving people a run for their money. I typically run a redundant army anyway 2 of everything I say!
I will say that EOTG works consistently but it eats up so many of you 25% hero allotment I've been avoiding it to run a saurus BSB to role with my slann and temple guard.
Oh and the giant bow is usually crap. just FYI

 

[kroxigor01]

I take two Stegadon (1 ancient and 1 regular), a life Slann and 3 units of 5 Chameleon skinks. This combination means that:

1. Many warmachines will be dieing early in the game from the Chameleon skinks.

2. Unless a Steg is killed outright (5+ wounds in 1 turn) it has the potential to be healed back.

This effectively means that most opponents with a small to moderate amount of artillery have 1 phase to have a go at the Stegs and try to kill 1 outright. Warmachine heavy armies will probably kill both the Stegs, but lose the battle anyway (skinks just own warmachines, and I have 22 core skinks with blowpipes in addition to the Chameleons...).

 

[strewart]

Yeah they have definitely taken a big hit in 8th ed... The giant bow was never really all that worth firing anyway, and now while they get stomp attacks, they cannot negate ranks if they get a flank charge and terror isn't as good as it used to be. The skinks will die easily from stepping up and lose valuable combat res too.

It gets a lot of favour though because it is such a beautiful model, he just needs some support these days or to only attack fairly soft targets. I'm personally leaning toward an ancient steg now, the giant blowpipes may be incredibly unrealistic but they are much more useful than the bow when he isn't in combat. The EotG is also now probably too expensive to take as support for a Slann like it used to do, so it has faded a bit too.

To sum up, mixed opinions. Against artillery it will die very easily, but in some games it will easily make its points back. If it doesn't do anything for yeah, then yeah drop it. I will keep the beasty because of the model even if it only does well every 3 games or whatever.

 

[logalog]

So I posted this quesiton in another thread but no answers so let's try here. EOTG ward save now it seems to me that is a major selling point of the EOTG, with it's ability to get your saurus to the front or get a flanking unit forward without to many losses probably skroxs units. So what is the value of a 5+ ward save?

 

[Caneghem]

So I posted this quesiton in another thread but no answers so let's try here. EOTG ward save now it seems to me that is a major selling point of the EOTG, with it's ability to get your saurus to the front or get a flanking unit forward without to many losses probably skroxs units. So what is the value of a 5+ ward save?

The main problem is how incredibly vulnerable the character on top of the EotG is to missile fire. The way cannons work now, your character will be almost instantly sniped. My personal use of the Stegadon will be just a vanilla ancient with blowpipes.

No matter what type of stegadon you take, the most important thing to do is to run a couple units of chameleon skinks so that you can neutralize the enemy's warmachines before they plaster your steg.

 

[vapor]

So I posted this quesiton in another thread but no answers so let's try here. EOTG ward save now it seems to me that is a major selling point of the EOTG, with it's ability to get your saurus to the front or get a flanking unit forward without to many losses probably skroxs units. So what is the value of a 5+ ward save?

I don't think it's worth it at all anymore. EOTG is too easy to kill with both shooting and combat (you can challenge the priest even if he hits a flank), so it's a very expensive support unit that isn't very good at supporting.

You can get into combat a lot faster now, which is the ultimate way of stopping war machines from being effective.

 

[Xul]

yea, sad but true...
the most expensive models (money wise) I have: saurus cavalry and stegadon are both crap now. it's a pity, as the models are nice. good that I didn't buy the carnosaur

 

[Khakorlot]

I can see a combat-bound stegadon working okay with a Lore of Death Slann, snipe the champion/character and charge the steggie into a unit with no models that can challenge; but it relies on keeping your steggie out of cannon-fire etc.

They also work quite well with LoLife, the lore's special effect allows you to heal him up as you go along.

I'll continue to use my EotG because it's such a great model, and I don't think it's wholly wasted. They were always the target of cannons in 7th, 8th just made them able to take less damage from them. Don't forget the channeling though. Unit out of range of your Slann? Use the priest on top to cast the MM through. Whilst it's not amazingly cost effective now I wouldn't just write it off because cannons can kill it more easily, truth is that that cannons and most templates can now kill anything more easily, if you stash your stegadon away then your opponent's cannons are only going to start slaughtering something else, probably your Slann/TG unit or your Sallies.

 

[Xul]

I agree that the EOTG model is very nice. however, not really much useful now.
to comment the points you made:
dragging the slann after the steg doesn't make sense just to recover the steg's wounds
sniping the enemy characters just so the steg can charge doesn't make sense as well - this and above are solutions to the steg problem, not to winning the game
the channeling only works on magic missiles, which are not even present in several lores
the steg is too expensive to be used as something to draw fire from WMs. actually, it's better to have that stone thrower hit your saurus. 1 is probably dead, but the ones around can survive easily - (tested this in practice). if you take higher state of consciousnes with the slann, you don't have to care about non-magical WMs at all. if you are facing magical WMs, use the plaque which changes slann's ward to 2+ against shooting. and finally, you can revive pretty much anything killed by a catapult, except a steg with a character on it

 

[boreas]

finally, you can revive pretty much anything killed by a catapult, except a steg with a character on it

I was about to model my Steg as an EotG, but the fact that I can't "Regrowth" it made me change it to an regular steg. I'll be facing Empire, mostly, so cannons will be present every game. If I can get the Steg in CC, though, even the regular one with St5 should be able to stay in there. I'll still model the Throne, so I can use it as an EotG because the look is awesome

Phil

 

[n810]

Have you guys thought about using spell to incerase the toughness of the Steg...
or run it thith the sun banner for extra shooting protection ?

 

[boreas]

IIRC, the cannon is St10, so even with T10, the steg gets hurt half the time (and the skinks at T6 also get obliterated). Now, with regrowth, you can regrow the skinks and give back wounds to the steg, but only if there is no character on it (stupid, but what can you do...)

Phil