The Lord-Celestant is a major character in the Storm cast Eternal army. The Lord-Celestant is strong, highly skilled and well armed. With this model he rides a Dragoth. This gives him extra speed and more attacks.
The Lord-Celestant on Dragoth is one of the models that are included in the Age of Sigma starter box so you can be sure that you will see a number of these models in Age of Sigma battles. This means that even if you do not play Stormcast Eternals you will need to know it’s strengths and weaknesses.
So with that let’s look at…
Lord-Celestant General Tactics
The Lord-Celestant does not have any shooting weapons so he is best getting stuck in the fight. However without support your Lord-Celestant will be easy pray for any sizeable mob of enemy. This means that you will need to use him in coordination with other units. This is specially true if your Lord-Celestant is your general. This is because your Generals Abilities have a range limit and if he is out on his own then he will be less effective.
Also be aware that the Lord-Celestant’s weapon has a big effect on the best way to use him.
Lord-Celestant on Dragoth Strength and Weapons
The Lord-Celestant has one of four weapon options; Tempestos Hammer, Thunderaxe, Lighting Hammer, and the Stormstrike Glaive. Each of these weapons have basic weapon stats and special rules.
Once a model has been built you will not be able to swap the weapon that you give your model. With this in mind you may want to read the rules for the different weapons and pick the one that most suits your playing style. If you have already built your Lord-Celestant, limited to the weapons available on the sprue, or ant to pick a weapon because it looks good ( and playing games is secondary ), then oto not fear! All the weapons are great. You will just need to adapt your playing style to match the weapon.
Tempestos Hammer
With 5 in 9 (55.55%) chance of wounding, -1 rend and D3 damage the tempest hammer is quite a weapon. You get 3 attacks with this weapon per combat round, so you can expect 1 to 2 wounds per turn (166.65% chance of wounding). However on the turn that you charge in you get and extra D3 attacks ( so you get the usual 3 attacks plus another 1 to 3) which brings the average number of wounds before any saves to 2.5 a round (249.97% chance).
Because the Lord-Celestant does so much additional damage on the charge with this weapon this is what him doing as often as possible. So it follows that you do not want him stuck in long multi-turn combats, but assaulting smaller groups, may be with support, that you can wipe out or chase off in a turn, and be available to assault another group the next turn.
Thunderaxe
The Thunder Axe has less chance of wounding than the ( 3 attacks with 44.44% chance of wounding = 133.32%),causes less damage, and has the same number of attacks. So why choose the Thunder Axe? The answer is in the special rules. With the Thunderaxe the Lord-Celestant gets an extra attack for each of your Storm Cast units within 5″. A few things to note here. First they need to be your Storm Cast Units. If you have two player on one side, you can not count units from your allies. Second, it’s one hit per unit, not model, and there is not much space in a 5″ radius to fit many units, or even just one model from a number of units ( which is all you need ). This means that if you organize things well you may get 2 or 3 extra attacks. However you get these attacks every combat round, and not just the one that you charged in. This means that the Thunderaxe suits players that like to surround their Lord-Celestant with friendly units and mob up on targets.
Lightning Hammer
The Lightning Hammer has a very similar basic stats line to the Thunder Hammer, although it has a shorter range.So 3 attacks with 44.44% chance of wounding each making a 133.32% chance of wounding per turn ( 1 and 1/3rd wounds per combat phase). However the special rules say that you get 2 additional immortal wounds on a roll of 6+ to hit. The ‘plus’ bit is in-case there are any bonuses to hit in effect. And again these are in addition to the normal wounds making this a powerful weapon, specially if you can conjure up some to-hit bonuses! Also notice that this bonus applies to all combat rounds, both yours and theirs. In essence then, this is a great weapon to have if you like your Lord-Celerant to go it alone and face mighty Heroes and Monsters on his own ( not recommended but very heroic ).
Stormstrike Glaive
The Stormestrike Glaive is a spear with a nasty blade in the end. It has the least chance of hitting per attack (33.33%), but it does get 4 attacks instead of 3 (total chance of wounding is 133.33% or 1 and 1/3 wounds per combat phase before saves). So again why would you choose this weapon? Again the answers are in the special rules. If you charge in with this weapon you cause 3 wounds with -2 rend. This means that this becomes a good monster killer weapon. Again this bonus is only on the charge so you want to avoid protracted combats and target smaller easier to kill, or easy to finish off.
.. And Don’t Forget about the Dragoth!
With all these weapon options available to your Lord-Celestant you may be tempted to over look the snarling beast with bad breath that he is sitting on! The Dragoth has two attacking methods, his claws and fangs, and that bad breath (Storm Breath).
The Claws and Fangs are formidable, with 3 attacks with 44.44% chance of wounding (= 133.32% or 1 and 1/3rd wounds per combat phase), however he also gets an Intolerable Damage special rule that means that if you roll a wound roll of 6+ ( including any bonuses) then the Dragoth causes D6 wounds.
The second weapon does not appear on the weapons list but should be not over looked. The Storm Breath is a 4″ blast template weapon with 12″ range and does not scatter ( in WH40k terms). Remember that you can measure before you decide where to place this template and that both friends and foe are affected by it and you do not have to pick a unit as the target, you can choose open ground. Line of sight is not needed either. Once you have picked your target point all units in 2″ of that point have a 50/50 chance of getting D3 immortal wounds. A 12″ range is not great, but this could thin out the opposition before assaulting and during a protracted multi-round close combat.
Lord-Celestant on Dragoth Command Ability – Lord of Hosts
This ability is and upgrade of the basic Inspiring Presence ability. The difference is that it creates a 24″ ‘bubble’ at the start of the command phase and all the Stormcast Eternals in the bubble do not have to take battle shock tests until the next command phase. Note that this only affects Stormcast Eternal units, so if you have a mixed force it is less effective, also if those units move out of the 24″ bubble they are still covered by the ability. Also any units that move into the 24″ bubble later are not covered. This could cause confusion so you may want to mark affected units with a marker (dice or piece of paper).
