So, Age of Sigmar 3rd edition happened and you bought Dominion. Or you split Dominion. Or you bought half of it off some site somewhere. But you got it. You now have a collection that’s not quite an army and want to bulk it out to 2,000 points for matched play games, but don’t want to break the bank and want to use all the models from your half of the box. In this mini-series aimed at newer players we’ll be covering what units pair well with the contents of Dominion for the two armies and give some sample lists of what you could field. 

The Stormcast half really is a solid start to an army. You get a big centre-piece type hero with high maneuverability, can kill big stuff, and brings models in units back from the dead. You also get some solid support heroes, battleline units, and tankier/killier units as well. All said and done this half comes out to being 1,415 points which is significantly more than the Orruk portion of the box. 

Dominion’s Stormcast

Leaders:

Yndrasta 

Lord-Imperitant 

Knight-Vexillor w/ Banner of Apotheosis

Knight-Arcanum

Battleline:

2 units of 5 Vindictors 

Other:

3 Annihilators w/ shields

3 Praetors 

Luckily you’re only 1 Battleline unit away from the minimum 3 needed; unless you’re playing your army as Knights Excelsior (one of the Stormhost subfaction options) which get to use the Annihilators as battleline as well. 

Some Stormhosts add in new options for battleline, but we’ll just be looking at basic battleline choices here for ease, as they’ll work for any Stormhost. 

Expanding the Army

When expanding an army from a starting point like Dominion, you have to consider a few things when deciding what to grab next:

Theme – Do yo want your army to follow a particular theme? You can lean into one playstyle like hard-hitting and hard-to-shift Paladins or  only-Thunderstrike (all the newer Stormcast) units. While you should never let this hamper your army ‘s ability to get things done it can be beneficial to have one thing you do really well and just really lean into it.

Gaps – Are there any threats that your army is not able to deal with? Can it reasonably take on monsters as well as hordes? Is it able to hold objectives while doing so? This may not be apparent at first and will take some practice, but is good to keep in mind. 

Models – Possibly the most Important factor from a practicality standpoint: do you want to spend your time and money on these models? Will you actually want to sit down and complete them, or are you just getting them because some dorks on the internet said they were good? This is something that often stops me from taking the most “optimised” lists because, no, I do not want to sit and paint the same unit 20 times over. 

Is it Legal – The majority of  games are Matched Play using the General’s Handbook so you need to prepare with that in mind. The rules being easily accessible while giving a sense of balance is what draws people to this game mode, but does mean you need to follow strict army building rules too. At 2,000 points you need to field 3 battleline units, can only field up to 6 Leaders (most Heroes) and are limited on Behemoth and Artillery as well. You can ignore these if youre only in it for Path to Glory but that does have its own rules to consider.

Units to Consider

Stormcast have a wide range of models and it can be overwhelming. The Stormcast army out of the box already has a lot of tools which is great, it has a big centerpiece hero that supports the army while also hitting hard. 

Some of the missing unit types that are worth thinking about are:

• Ranged Combat
• Priests
• Monsters

Ranged Combat

There are a few units you can take for a bit of ranged punch, Judicators and Vanguard-Raptors are probably your best pick. Each of them have longer and shorter ranged options. The longer ranged variations deal mortal wounds (instead of normal damage) on 6’s to hit meaning they can reliably put damage on any unit; the shorter ranged variants double the number of hits they score instead making them great for clearing hordes but lack rend so they aren’t the best choice to attack heavily armoured units. 

The new Thunderstrike iteration of archers are the Vigilors, firing at a shorter 18” range than the others but still with a -1 rend and a unique ability that if their ranged attacks cause wounds to be allocated to a unit, then the rest of your Stormcast army gains +1 to hit against that unit until the end of the turn. These also become battleline if your general is a Knight-Judicator, opening up some more options for your army. 

Any of these 3 units will give your Dominion Stormcast ranged threat, making your opponent have to think about deployment and movement just that much more. My personal pick here are the Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows. They have a long 30” range, have a potential for mortal wounds, are Rend -2 and are Damage 2. A unit of 3 is expensive at 240 points for only 6 shots but hit on 3+ and wound on 2+ making those reliable shots. Pair with a unit of cheap Aetherwings for better hit rolls against enemy units near the Aetherwings and they can be great character snipers.

Priests

The new book has a host of new Prayers for the army’s Priests to be able to chant, and some are so incredibly good that it’s hard to pass up the chance to add one into your army. The stand-out Prayer in the book is Translocate which is answered on a 3+ (on a D6 roll) and allows you to remove a nearby Stormcast unit from the table and set them up again more than 9” away from all enemy units. Since this is done in the Hero phase, that unit can move, shoot and charge as normal after being set up. This allows for some incredibly easy charges with otherwise very slow units.  I expect this to be FAQ’d eventually so don’t say you weren’t warned if it does.

The Lord-Relictor, Lord-Veritant, and Knight-Relictor are your 3 flavours of priest. The Lord-Relictor is my personal favourite since he adds 1 to his own chanting rolls and has 2 prayers on his Warscroll that are also situationally useful to either heal D3 wounds to a nearby unit or just blast an enemy unit within 12” for D3 mortal wounds and also makes that unit suffer -1 to hit rolls. The Lord-Veritant is also useful in that he can also unbind 1 spell per enemy Hero phase as if he was a wizard and also has a Warscroll prayer to hit an enemy unit within 12” for D3 mortal wounds. 

The new Thunderstrike Priest the Knight-Relictor is cheaper in cost. He has no built-in prayer on his warscroll but he does bring a new ability in that enemy Prayers and Invocations will not affect himself or friendly Stormcast wholly within 12” on a 4+ (rolled each time that unit would be affected). 

Monsters

It’s dragons. All of your options here are dragons. So, sorry if you don’t like dragons. 

The two new named dragons, Krondys and Karazai are each a little too expensive at 600 points, so to take one of these you’d need to drop something else from your Dominion set to take (and still get a third battleline unit in too, don’t forget!). That said, there’s a reason these are so expensive. Krondys adds some very strong magic to the army, at full wounds gaining +3 to all casting rolls while casting 2 spells per turn. Karazai by contrast is a combat machine, with more attacks than his wizard counterpart and gaining abilities depending on what he’s killed through the game (more attacks, healing wounds, or advantage to run and charge rolls). 

A bit cheaper are the 2 variants of Stardrake. The oldest of the Stormcast monsters and very strong in the new Battletome. You can either take a Lord Celestant riding one or the slightly cheaper Drakesworn Templar. The former has a better save of 3+ and is able to issue an order once per game without spending a command point. The latter is cheaper in cost with only a 4+ save but also with a bow that fires 2 shots, as well as different melee weapon options. Both work basically the same though otherwise with a long ranged attack from the Stardrake itself that starts out at 4 attacks and decreases as it suffers damage. They also give friendly Stormcast Wizards within 18” +1 to casting and unbinding rolls, a pretty large aura actually that’s easy to keep with the massive base but also means if you give one the Arcane Tome artefact will grant itself those bonuses too. 

The cheapest Monster Hero is the new Knight-Draconis. The hero version of the Stormdrake Guard and definitely best taken alongside each other. A unit of 2 Stormdrake Guard and a Knight-Draconis only comes in at 540 points, the most effective way of adding some monsters into your army. The Knight-Draconis hits hard in combat with 5 attacks at rend -3 and damage 2 on top of the mount’s handful of attacks. Before even getting into combat though, they all have a 12” ranged breath weapon that deals mortal wounds depending on how you roll. These are both really good together. 

Sample Lists

The first of a couple sample lists here is a Knights Excelsior list, which gives you those Annihilators as battleline as well as buffs one unit of Annihilators each turn giving a unit +1 to hit and wound rolls so long as they are attacking a unit that has more models than your own attacking unit. Also importantly this list adds in the Knight-Relictor for the reasons discussed above. The Lord-Imperatant is given the Arcane Tome artefact so that you have more than 1 wizard in your army for an extra cast and an extra unbind each turn. His Command Trait too helping those Annihilators stay alive the turn they drop in, being -1 to hit until end of turn after arriving from reserve.

Placed into 2 battalions, the Command Entourage for an additional enhancement which is spent on an extra Holy Command as well as the Redemption Brotherhood to make all of the non-heroes a one-drop, lowering the army’s drops from 11 to 6 allowing you to maybe choose who takes first turn if you come up against a high drop army.

Dominion to 2k: Knights Excelsior

Dominion to 2k: Hammers of Sigmar