So my ritualistic selling-of-old-army-book-on-eBay-before-it-becomes-useless has been undertaken, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask you all the following question: What exactly are you hoping (or fearing) for in the new Army Book? Indeed, if you've heard any rumours, what do you make of them? We can be fairly sure the book's coming next month so let's get the speculating underway while there's still time.

Have at it, Dakka.

Allright let's sum up what we allready know (from rumours)

GENERAL SPECIAL RULES:
-NO ASF or Valor as we know it today.
-Elven Dexterity: units with this rule can use parry save when wielding any weapon, even if mounted (some units may use it against shooting or even if mounted).
-Special rule for rolling an additional dice on chase an remove the lowest result (or four dice removing two lowest dices to swift stride).
-IaC: more than f*cking around, there are chances that the general may somehow help, dependin on region/power chosen it benefits some units.

SPECIAL RULES ON WEAPONRY:
-Elven Weapons: no penalties on two-handed or moving&shooting (there may exist extra bonus on elite units). (Translator says: in the beginning I thought of SW, but maybe maidens are also here).
-Ithilmar armor: no penalties when moving, +1AS on heavy armor (only on elite units).
-Dragon Armor: 3+ armor save against flaming attacks.
-Lion Pelt: Can also be used in CC.

MAGIC SPECIAL RULES:
-Elven Mages: +1 to dispel and can repeat channelings.
-High Magic: More powerful spells and representing the 8 lores of magic. It is said that there is one that gives life back to a dead character and other one specific against Chaos and "Bad" armies. They will be the most powerful sorcerers until Lizards get renewed after summer. Some rules will be shared with them.

SPECIFIC RULES ON UNITS:
-Martial Prowess: Elves fight and shoot with a extra rank (not specified, but this could be armywide).
-Spears and LSG: heavy armor and shield option.
-Archers: Light Armor.
-SHs: Heavy armor. Cheaper.
-Ellyrian Reavers: Same.
-T-Chariot: Same, cheaper.
-SMs: Parry save against shooting, Swords of Hoeth, Paths fighting.
-White Lions: Lumber Axes, Stubborn, Forest Stride.
-Phoenix Guard: Know their destiny (unbreakable), Magic Resistance, Ward Save. (maybe something about flaming attacks).
-SWs: Stalkers (?), Night Warriors (?).
-DPs: Caledor Proudness, all the rest remains the same.
-Lion Chariot: Same, cheaper.
-Flying Chariot: RBT on top of it, crew with elven weapons.
-RBT: cheaper, better.
-Dragons: Will of the Dragon (mix of 5ed. rule plus communion with rider that makes them share some rules). Super Dragon (Caledor Dragon?) may be wizard too.
-Phoenix: May be consecrated to Asuryan or another God (Phoenix alone or in a shrine?)
-Fire Dragons (MC): same as dragon princes, beast mounted is better than eagle but worse than a hypogryphe. Fly, 1+AS. Rare.
-Maiden Guard: Avelorn Mirror (?), Deadly in CC (?) (Translator says: I think no one knows what they'd do. I thought they would not exist, thought this was a wishlist... Maybe it's just a unit upgrade after all...).
-Warrior-mage (different from dragon-mage): Hoeth disciplines, fighting magic (guy was convinced one of them would be Belannaer).

Oooh, the repet channellings is something I've not heard about before. Is that just re-rolls to channel?

Prepare for a few new units, but brace yourself for losing 90% of your magic items. Expect Teclis and the Book to get Nerfed. Still playable, but not OP like they are now.

Speed of Asurmen will likely no longer ignore ASL from great weapons. So Swordmasters and White Lions will simply strike at inititive with no rerolls.

High Magic will probably get buffed a little, at least to where it will be a useful choice.

Slight repricing of many units. Dragons may be cheaper, Griffons will be cheaper but still lame(see Empire)

You may get White Lions riding... white lions. Monstrous Cavalry FTW!

 Grey Templar wrote:
You may get White Lions riding... white lions. Monstrous Cavalry FTW!

SO MANY LIONS!

But I think, in fact, our monstrous cav is coming in the form of a Pheonix, which is kinda cool.

I am gutted about the loss of Magic Items in every 8th Ed Book, same goes for all other armies, since I like the variety and customisability that it brings. And it's just fun thinking of all the combos you can create. As long as they keep the Silver Wand, Seerstaff and I guess Forliath's Robe, I'll be happy. Still doesn't quite match my fear of losing the Sacrificial Dagger when DE get re-released though...

getting rid of ASF

Thanks for all the rumour insights--I hadn't heard much of that stuff. Sounds pretty awesome, but what I am really hoping for is a significant change to the Core units for the HE--right now they are pretty vanilla, and so 25% of your army sort-of just dies or sits there. There are already too many Special units to choose from, but I guess this fits into GW's current strategy of providing Monsters and Monstrous Cavalry to all armies.

I love the High Elves, but I also play Dwarfs...when are the Stumpies going to get a new army book? This is the Second new HE book since that ancient Dwarf book came out.... Same goes for Wood Elves and Bretonnians. Oh well.

Well, it looks like ASF is staying, but it doesn't give units with GWs the rule, so swordmasters and the like with strikeat initiative.

An ellyrian reavers and silver helms are apparently now core, so that's more options at least.

 The Shadow wrote:
Well, it looks like ASF is staying, but it doesn't give units with GWs the rule, so swordmasters and the like with strikeat initiative.

An ellyrian reavers and silver helms are apparently now core, so that's more options at least.

HE are getting normal ASF wich means no more rerolls!

phatonic wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Well, it looks like ASF is staying, but it doesn't give units with GWs the rule, so swordmasters and the like with strikeat initiative.

An ellyrian reavers and silver helms are apparently now core, so that's more options at least.

HE are getting normal ASF wich means no more rerolls!

It's a shame, but at least the retention of it in some form means the 30-odd Swordmasters I've got won't be nerfed into oblivion. At least, it appears that way. They get a 6+ ward against most shooting attacks though, which is pretty cool.

 The Shadow wrote:

phatonic wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Well, it looks like ASF is staying, but it doesn't give units with GWs the rule, so swordmasters and the like with strikeat initiative.

An ellyrian reavers and silver helms are apparently now core, so that's more options at least.

HE are getting normal ASF wich means no more rerolls!

It's a shame, but at least the retention of it in some form means the 30-odd Swordmasters I've got won't be nerfed into oblivion. At least, it appears that way. They get a 6+ ward against most shooting attacks though, which is pretty cool.

Well still striking with great weapons at I5... still do good.. unless you meet a slannesh deamon army... Warriors of chaos etc etc stuff with high I.

...which is STILL good. You still strike at I5 with GW. How many other units strike at I5 with GW?

Yeah, its fine. Its actually balanced. Swordmasters and White Lions were stupid good for their points.

They were really good when they had re-roll at those points and ASF.

However I am Hopeing the Avelorn Archers are worth taking.

The Frostheart phoenix (Articuno) is a beast and will make it into my list other than that I really hope our book is diverse and offers many options so that i can write list without having to start out i need x of y to be competiitive so forth and so on.

Avelorn Archers?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Avelorn Archers?

I forget the proper name the flaming magical archer girls.

I thought those were the Maiden Guard.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Avelorn Archers?

The manish looking ones with the magic bows.

-Matt


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:
...which is STILL good. You still strike at I5 with GW. How many other units strike at I5 with GW?

Warriors of chaos swing at init 5 and S5.
I'm actually hoping white lions get a bit of a nurf. They are stupidly good for the points.

-Matt

Sigvatr wrote:...which is STILL good. You still strike at I5 with GW. How many other units strike at I5 with GW?

Yeah, it's still awesome. AND, from the other side of the elf-spectrum, my Black Guard can now obliterate Swordmasters!

captain collius wrote:They were really good when they had re-roll at those points and ASF.

However I am Hopeing the Avelorn Archers are worth taking.

The Frostheart phoenix (Articuno) is a beast and will make it into my list other than that I really hope our book is diverse and offers many options so that i can write list without having to start out i need x of y to be competiitive so forth and so on.

Grey Templar wrote:I thought those were the Maiden Guard.

I think Collius is on about Sisters of Avelorn, which are some unit armed with Magic Bows. They're part of the Shadow Warriors kit.

I'm personally hoping there's different types of magic bows you can take. For example, one could give flaming attacks, one could give Armour Piercing etc...

You mean the picture at the very bottom of this link?

http://pinsofwar.com/high-elves-leak-2/

They sure look like female models to me.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You mean the picture at the very bottom of this link?

http://pinsofwar.com/high-elves-leak-2/

They sure look like female models to me.

Yes I am at work and under the influence of allergy medication so I am far less eloquent than i should be.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Warriors of chaos swing at init 5 and S5.
I'm actually hoping white lions get a bit of a nurf. They are stupidly good for the points.

-Matt

Hmm....don't forget that it's a Mat Ward book. Maybe they get Heroic KB and cost 11 pts each.

HEs still have re-rolls, only the units with GWs will no longer receive re-reolls. Thus making phoenix guard that much better, especially if they receive unbreakable as rumored.

So stoked for this to drop tomorrow night and get the army book in my hands in a week.

 Sigvatr wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Warriors of chaos swing at init 5 and S5.
I'm actually hoping white lions get a bit of a nurf. They are stupidly good for the points.

-Matt

Hmm....don't forget that it's a Mat Ward book. Maybe they get Heroic KB and cost 11 pts each.

Nope thats only in my Dreams. But with martial prowess 21 Wl's ina 7x3 can now all attack to the front

I predict player reaction will be:

ZOMG, HE ARE THE WORST EVER. GW SUX. 8TH EDITION IS WORSE THAN A 2 YEAR OLD WITH CRAYONS TRYING TO DRAW THE SISTINE CHAPEL.

That's going to happen no matter what. So I actually want GW to nerf HE so bad that it's actually true. I want Teclis to have all 1 stats, be a lvl 1 wizard with -3 to cast and gets a miscast on any single die roll of 2 or more.

I want swordmasters to have spears and be ASF.

I HE archers to have that same rule as skaven where they can attack their own troops in combat, except only on a 1 in 6 do they actually hit the enemy cuz their hats are so big.

I want dragons to be 300 or so points but they are always sleeping.

I want HE to have no magic items at all except several duplicates from the BRB at double the cost.

Etc etc.


So when the 100% likely cries of nerf come, I can really honestly say, "yes, you are absolutely right."

furbyballer wrote:
HEs still have re-rolls, only the units with GWs will no longer receive re-reolls. Thus making phoenix guard that much better, especially if they receive unbreakable as rumored.

So stoked for this to drop tomorrow night and get the army book in my hands in a week.

Unbreakable would be pretty awesome for Pheonix Guard and it would make sense fluff-wise.

I imagine they will be more balanced and on par with other 8th Ed. books, as they should be. I would like for them to be that way, but seeing some of the new units i.e. the flying chariots of doom, makes me skeptical as to that actually happening. I am also very interested in seeing how their magic will turn out as it does need to be knocked down a few pegs, and the core/special choices better not end up like DE or that's gonna be a huge broken piece in the fabric of Warhammer Fantasy.

Also I do not want them to also be Wood Elves, these new units and their bow specialties is making me suspect that in lieu of making the Wood Elves viable again after scrapping the book 3 times, they are just going to sort of throw them into the HE and half ass the Wood Evles real book.

Mountain-Breaker wrote:

Also I do not want them to also be Wood Elves, these new units and their bow specialties is making me suspect that in lieu of making the Wood Elves viable again after scrapping the book 3 times, they are just going to sort of throw them into the HE and half ass the Wood Evles real book.

I wouldn't worry about a single shooting high elf choice completely replacing wood elves. I'd worry about wood elves just being so ignored they vanish.
I'm just going to start the rumor now that Woodelves and Brettonians will be combined into a single book. The units will stay largely the same, but the army will use the same type of rules for the general and BSB. If the generals an elf, the humans can't use the leadership, if human then elves can't use the Ld. Same goes for BSB.
If you take those two lists as is, and combine them, you get a pretty decent well rounded and well themed army.



-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Mountain-Breaker wrote:

Also I do not want them to also be Wood Elves, these new units and their bow specialties is making me suspect that in lieu of making the Wood Elves viable again after scrapping the book 3 times, they are just going to sort of throw them into the HE and half ass the Wood Evles real book.

I wouldn't worry about a single shooting high elf choice completely replacing wood elves. I'd worry about wood elves just being so ignored they vanish.
I'm just going to start the rumor now that Woodelves and Brettonians will be combined into a single book. The units will stay largely the same, but the army will use the same type of rules for the general and BSB. If the generals an elf, the humans can't use the leadership, if human then elves can't use the Ld. Same goes for BSB.
If you take those two lists as is, and combine them, you get a pretty decent well rounded and well themed army.



-Matt

It's a nice theory, but I doubt it'll happen to be honest. Brets and WE may have links, but they're still as different as chalk and cheese.

Back on the topic of High Elves, I really hope the White Lion Chariot gets significantly cheaper, or better, or both. I really love the model, but mine sits uselessly in its drawer most of the time.

Spearmen for steadfast stripping + chariot works pretty well.
I think the problem is most elf players just write off their core and don't plan on support the core, but rather plan on winning in spite of their core.

If Elves loose ASF, impact hits become more useful.

-Matt

Well, rumours are they'll have it, but it'll be standard ASF. So White Lions will strike at Initiative. Since it's WLs who ride the Chariot, you have a point!

As long as they can no longer get an ethereal dragon with 2+ ward against magic attacks (which one of my mates seems to get off every game...) I won't mind too much.
Bringing the magic down a peg while improving their lore sounds ok, although I don't like the idea of anti-chaos spells... that kind of thing (including the anti-deamon stuff in Lore of Light) seems kinda broken to me, since there is no equivalent for the good guys to fight back with. Those evil High Elves need to be purged.

Have you seen Teclis's new rules for selecting magic?

Loremaster for High Magic (obviously)

OR

CHOOSE one spell from each of the 8 lores

Is it me or is that pretty good? And only 450pts now too.

 Flashman wrote:
Have you seen Teclis's new rules for selecting magic?

Loremaster for High Magic (obviously)

OR

CHOOSE one spell from each of the 8 lores

Is it me or is that pretty good? And only 450pts now too.

He is capable of blowing himself up now if he fails to get throne of vines off right?

Right?

One spell of each lores would be...dear god. ToV then pick your OP spells of choice from other lores. Yeah. Sure. Waiting to see the complete rules, still, but...oh lord. Mat Ward.

 Sigvatr wrote:
One spell of each lores would be...dear god. ToV then pick your OP spells of choice from other lores. Yeah. Sure. Waiting to see the complete rules, still, but...oh lord. Mat Ward.

That's official - a screen grab of Teclis's army list entry was posted in the N&R thread

It's one part of his rules, I want to see all of his rules before talking about him. He must have had some REALLY REALLY HARD nerfs to balance this advantage out.

Holy crap, how can you even balance sth. like this out? -_-

 Sigvatr wrote:
It's one part of his rules, I want to see all of his rules before talking about him. He must have had some REALLY REALLY HARD nerfs to balance this advantage out.

Holy crap, how can you even balance sth. like this out? -_-

It's easy, he's too expensive to see show up in any normal game.
I'd be far more worried about 2 slaan than 1 Teclis.

-Matt




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flashman wrote:
Have you seen Teclis's new rules for selecting magic?

Loremaster for High Magic (obviously)

OR

CHOOSE one spell from each of the 8 lores

Is it me or is that pretty good? And only 450pts now too.

"Choose" a spell is the terminology they use in 8th edition. Unless it says, don't roll, Teclis is rolling up 1 spell on 8 lores.
IMO, that's far worse than loremaster shadow, life or death.

-Matt

He's 450 points now.

I, personally, am not too worried as SC are banned anyway, but if this bears true, Mat Ward ruined balance once again.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flashman wrote:
Have you seen Teclis's new rules for selecting magic?

Loremaster for High Magic (obviously)

OR

CHOOSE one spell from each of the 8 lores

Is it me or is that pretty good? And only 450pts now too.

"Choose" a spell is the terminology they use in 8th edition. Unless it says, don't roll, Teclis is rolling up 1 spell on 8 lores.
IMO, that's far worse than loremaster shadow, life or death.

-Matt

Hmm... not quite as powerful, but 8 spells is still pretty good and odds are, one of them will be decent.

Oh, misread it then, sorry. Sounds better.

If Teclis now lost his miscast protection, we might look at a better incarnation now.

Teclis is also, effectively, a Level 5 Wizard. Personally, though, I'm not bothered how he turns out. Like Sigvatr said, SCs are usually banned and, if he is OP, I just won't use him, like I don't do now.

Anyhow, I'm more interested in the Pheonixes. At first glance they don't seem that bad to me. It's 220 for the Fire and 245 for the Ice one. The Fire one's profile is mostly 5, whereas the Ice one is mostly 6s. Attacks is a bit less, so is initiative iirc. Ld is obviously higher. Flamespyre has a nifty rule where it can pass over a unit and inflict damage which is partially based on the number of ranks it has. It also has a nifty rule where, if it dies, it can come back on a 6. Most of the time you'll be getting a 3-5, which just inflicts damage on nearby units (I think this includes friendly ones). On a 1-2 it's gone for good.

Frostheart makes every unit in BtB contact with it -1 Strength and ASL, which personally I think is awesome. Can't remember much else.

Each Pheonix also has a 5++ and a Special Rule which alters its profile based on the winds of magic. You take the highest dice roll from the Winds of Magic roll and compare it to a chart. A 1 or a 2 will have a negative effect, but a 3+ will just increase stuff. It's mostly characteristics but a 6 ups their Ward Save to 4++.

The Loremaster also looks pretty awesome. It has each of the Signature Spells from the BRB Lores and is pretty nasty in combat. I'm personally not a great fan of the model, but my extensive elf bitz box will fix that. I'm just hoping it won't be too expensive.

ASF is just standard ASF, so SM and WLs strike at initiative - presuming they're still armed with GWs. Army-wide Martial Prowess is pretty much confirmed, which, providing it works like it does now, will be awesome.

It'll be interesting to see what the Shadow Warriors and Sisters of Avelorn are like, I haven't really got much info on them. I hope the Shadow Warriors are good because, despite being rather expensive, I love the models.

If the loremasters are level 2 imagine 2 of them and teclis OMG what a nasty magic ohase! Your choices are amazing.

canadianguy wrote:
If the loremasters are level 2 imagine 2 of them and teclis OMG what a nasty magic ohase! Your choices are amazing.

Well, in the WD Battle Report, the Loremaster was a Lord Choice. So that either means there's a Level 3/4 Version of it, or the Level 2 is a Lord. The latter would make sense, but would also be kinda annoying. I plan on using a Lvl4 Life Mage and a Loremaster as my casters in my 2400pt army. Subject to change depending on the full rules of course.

If it is a lord choice only then it is pretty balanced, do they get each lore attribute as well?

canadianguy wrote:
If it is a lord choice only then it is pretty balanced, do they get each lore attribute as well?

Well, unless there's some rule dictating otherwise then yes. You use a spell from a lore, you get the effect of that Lore Attribute. The fact you have spells from other Lores is irrelevant. Being able to use all the attributes is, in itself, a pretty cool tactic: "So yeah, I feel like swapping with that guy over there, I'm just gonna cast Melkoth's..."

Anyone else notice in the rumors of spells, that high magic has 9 spells.
On the GW preview, they pan through the spell deck, which has 8 cards.
Interesting, it's 1 more spells than most lores or magic, but one of the spells from the rumor doesn't make the cut.
I'm betting that fury of khaine isn't in the lore anymore, just a bound effect of the ring. (since no other leaked items are bound spells, that seems to make the most sense).

-Matt


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, if the fire in 3 ranks make it in, shadow warriors will be able to put out some decent firepower without too much frontage. Will be interesting to see if an elf gunline works (3 chariots with bolt throwers as specials, 4 repeaters as rares, a phoenix to fly over giant units, and skirmishers and fast cav as core).

Too bad high elf archers are so terribly ugly. I wonder if glade guard with a head swap would work as high elf archers.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Anyone else notice in the rumors of spells, that high magic has 9 spells.
On the GW preview, they pan through the spell deck, which has 8 cards.
Interesting, it's 1 more spells than most lores or magic, but one of the spells from the rumor doesn't make the cut.
I'm betting that fury of khaine isn't in the lore anymore, just a bound effect of the ring. (since no other leaked items are bound spells, that seems to make the most sense).

-Matt

They have two Signature Spells - Drain Magic and Soul Quench. Not sure how it will work, but I presume you can swap one spell for either, or swap two for both. Drain Magic works differently now. Basically, you just cast it on any unit (friend or foe) and, if cast, any spell currently effecting that unit is gone. You can boost the power of the spell to make it effect all units, not just a single one, within range. Soul Quench is just a Magic Missile: 2D6 S4 hits, can be boosted to inflict 4D6. So it looks like this has replaced Fury of Khaine. Drain Magic and Soul Quench are cast on a 7+ and an 8+, with the boosted versions being 14+ and 16+ (all respectively).

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, if the fire in 3 ranks make it in, shadow warriors will be able to put out some decent firepower without too much frontage. Will be interesting to see if an elf gunline works (3 chariots with bolt throwers as specials, 4 repeaters as rares, a phoenix to fly over giant units, and skirmishers and fast cav as core).

Too bad high elf archers are so terribly ugly. I wonder if glade guard with a head swap would work as high elf archers.

-Matt

Don't forget the Sisters of Avelorn!

I will be interested to see how good the bolt throwers are and, indeed, how good they are on the Skycutters. Like Matt Hutson said after the WD Battle Report, taking Bolt Throwers on the Skycutters forces them into a supportive role. They are chariots after all, so they may be better getting stuck in (possibly as a mount for a Sea Helm too).

 The Shadow wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Anyone else notice in the rumors of spells, that high magic has 9 spells.
On the GW preview, they pan through the spell deck, which has 8 cards.
Interesting, it's 1 more spells than most lores or magic, but one of the spells from the rumor doesn't make the cut.
I'm betting that fury of khaine isn't in the lore anymore, just a bound effect of the ring. (since no other leaked items are bound spells, that seems to make the most sense).

-Matt

They have two Signature Spells - Drain Magic and Soul Quench. Not sure how it will work, but I presume you can swap one spell for either, or swap two for both. Drain Magic works differently now. Basically, you just cast it on any unit (friend or foe) and, if cast, any spell currently effecting that unit is gone. You can boost the power of the spell to make it effect all units, not just a single one, within range. Soul Quench is just a Magic Missile: 2D6 S4 hits, can be boosted to inflict 4D6. So it looks like this has replaced Fury of Khaine. Drain Magic and Soul Quench are cast on a 7+ and an 8+, with the boosted versions being 14+ and 16+ (all respectively).

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, if the fire in 3 ranks make it in, shadow warriors will be able to put out some decent firepower without too much frontage. Will be interesting to see if an elf gunline works (3 chariots with bolt throwers as specials, 4 repeaters as rares, a phoenix to fly over giant units, and skirmishers and fast cav as core).

Too bad high elf archers are so terribly ugly. I wonder if glade guard with a head swap would work as high elf archers.

-Matt

Don't forget the Sisters of Avelorn!

I will be interested to see how good the bolt throwers are and, indeed, how good they are on the Skycutters. Like Matt Hutson said after the WD Battle Report, taking Bolt Throwers on the Skycutters forces them into a supportive role. They are chariots after all, so they may be better getting stuck in (possibly as a mount for a Sea Helm too).

From what I've read, the Skycutters get S5 bolt throwers. If the bolt thrower upgrade is cheap, I'd consider maxing out on them, along with 4 repeaters as rares. The repeaters don't really need to get better, they only need to get a little cheaper. With 7 bolt throwers, and then magic and skimishing scouting core (is shadow warriors do go to core), elves may be able to pull off a gunline. Shoot up an enemy until they are weak, then pile in chariots to finish them.
I don't buy that you always want to charge with chariots. Ask the Iron Blaster and Cannon of Khorne about that.

-Matt

Repeater Bolt Throwers are now 70pts

 Flashman wrote:
Repeater Bolt Throwers are now 70pts

Which is huge.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
I don't buy that you always want to charge with chariots. Ask the Iron Blaster and Cannon of Khorne about that.

-Matt

They're bloody great cannons though, not bolt throwers.

Flashman wrote:Repeater Bolt Throwers are now 70pts

That's pretty good, I'll give you. If the Volley thing is similar they may indeed be worth taking. Still annoyingly expensive model-wise though. I guess you could do some converting if you got a Skycutter and didn't use the Bolt Thrower. Tbh, if you get a Skycutter, model the Sea Helm as a separate character/BSB and then use the Bolt Thrower as a normal Bolt Thrower you're actually getting pretty decent value.

Just ebay for the older ones. They look much better then the newer IMO anyways.

Also just confirmed that Shadow Warriors are, sadly, not Core Units...

 The Shadow wrote:
Also just confirmed that Shadow Warriors are, sadly, not Core Units...

No way to get them in there by taking the shadow king ?

I'm hoping for a top tier book at long last. Something that doesn't fade away in power after 2-3 other books come out like the last few HE books have and can last a full edition without getting left in the shade. Luckily, I think we have the author for the job this time.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I'm hoping for a top tier book at long last. Something that doesn't fade away in power after 2-3 other books come out like the last few HE books have and can last a full edition without getting left in the shade. Luckily, I think we have the author for the job this time.

Brave words

jonolikespie wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:
Also just confirmed that Shadow Warriors are, sadly, not Core Units...

No way to get them in there by taking the shadow king ?

That's a possibility, actually. It's also the last hope for a Shadow Warrior Army!

jonolikespie wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I'm hoping for a top tier book at long last. Something that doesn't fade away in power after 2-3 other books come out like the last few HE books have and can last a full edition without getting left in the shade. Luckily, I think we have the author for the job this time.

Brave words

Still, like I said before, I'd rather have an OP book than a crap one. I can make a non-TFG list out of an OP book, but I can't make a good list out of a crap book...

 jonolikespie wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I'm hoping for a top tier book at long last. Something that doesn't fade away in power after 2-3 other books come out like the last few HE books have and can last a full edition without getting left in the shade. Luckily, I think we have the author for the job this time.

Brave words

Want a strong book - get Ward. He does a good job for GW as they keep giving him work and big projects (both systems main rulebooks to date!), he gives them sales in return as people rush to buy the latest supertrend.

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I'm hoping for a top tier book at long last. Something that doesn't fade away in power after 2-3 other books come out like the last few HE books have and can last a full edition without getting left in the shade. Luckily, I think we have the author for the job this time.

Brave words

Want a strong book - get Ward. He does a good job for GW as they keep giving him work and big projects (both systems main rulebooks to date!), he gives them sales in return as people rush to buy the latest supertrend.

That's not good for the health of the competitive game scene, which is already practically on life support in my local area

 jonolikespie wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:
I'm hoping for a top tier book at long last. Something that doesn't fade away in power after 2-3 other books come out like the last few HE books have and can last a full edition without getting left in the shade. Luckily, I think we have the author for the job this time.

Brave words

Want a strong book - get Ward. He does a good job for GW as they keep giving him work and big projects (both systems main rulebooks to date!), he gives them sales in return as people rush to buy the latest supertrend.

That's not good for the health of the competitive game scene, which is already practically on life support in my local area

I think that GW no longer push anything towards the tournament scene in their mindset when producing rules and supplements. All the "Forging a Narrative" stuff points to that.

I don't think GW ever supported tournament play - at least not since I've been playing.

As for your local tournament scene, it's largely up to the TOs and community to fix things. Hopefully, there won't be much for you to fix, maybe banning a certain unit or item, but, if worst comes to worst and you need to ban High Elves completely, then so be it.

The Shadow has a very good point. It is a lot easier to downscale a bit than it is to scale it up.

Restricting strong picks is a lot easier / more precise than trying to buff an army by e.g. allowing it to field more points.

Call me a dreamer but since we're wishlisting after the fact anyways I'd rather have a balanced book than a top or bottom one...having said this, I think HE are extremely competetive. With noticeable army wide point drops, it's entirely possible to field a second unit of Elites, or anything else in fact, on top of your standard "old" list. Or a couple of new units, whatever.

I wish they had done that to my Empire, where I had to remove a couple of units due to all the point increases but that's spilt milk I guess.

Oh, I hope they become competitive again, alone for seeing them on the battlefield again. I really like their art style.

Step 1: Place Wizard's Tower on battlefield.

Step 2: Place Loremaster of Hoeth next to Wizar'd Tower.

Step 3: ????

Step 4: ALL THE SPELLS!

For those who are interested, there's a massive thread over at ulthuan.net. Pretty much everyone is agreeing that the Frostheard Phoenix is amazing, and that the Flying Chariot is pretty good too.

As for me, apart from the buffs to the Dragons, I'm extatic that Dragon Mages start with Dragon Armour, as it means that they're not completely stupid anymore.

Sorry, what? On what basis do you place that tower and ensure your LM can go near?

Folding Fortress is a piece of magic equipment that allows you to place a tower in your deployment zone.

Needless to say it's banned at comped tournaments

Its not a Wizard tower though. Its just a regular tower.

You're obviously not going to be able to place terrain the way you want all the time, it was just an attempt at being amusing while pointing out that he'd get 56 spells.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Needless to say

Then don't.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You're obviously not going to be able to place terrain the way you want all the time, it was just an attempt at being amusing while pointing out that he'd get 56 spells.

HA the look of sheer bewilderment on someones face when they have all those options.

 captain collius wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You're obviously not going to be able to place terrain the way you want all the time, it was just an attempt at being amusing while pointing out that he'd get 56 spells.

HA the look of sheer bewilderment on someones face when they have all those options.

Just think of the pain in the butt when the lord of change steals a random spell. Who's got a D56?
I think I'd just shuffle my spell deck and have him cut a card.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 captain collius wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You're obviously not going to be able to place terrain the way you want all the time, it was just an attempt at being amusing while pointing out that he'd get 56 spells.

HA the look of sheer bewilderment on someones face when they have all those options.

Just think of the pain in the butt when the lord of change steals a random spell. Who's got a D56?
I think I'd just shuffle my spell deck and have him cut a card.

-Matt

and then pray he pulls aspect of the dreadknight.

 captain collius wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 captain collius wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You're obviously not going to be able to place terrain the way you want all the time, it was just an attempt at being amusing while pointing out that he'd get 56 spells.

HA the look of sheer bewilderment on someones face when they have all those options.

Just think of the pain in the butt when the lord of change steals a random spell. Who's got a D56?
I think I'd just shuffle my spell deck and have him cut a card.

-Matt

and then pray he pulls aspect of the dreadknight.

Lol. 56 spells, and you nailed the most useless of all of them.

-Matt

I am actually quite looking forward to playing the odd game with Teclis and hoping I pull off Enfeebling Foe + Dwellers Below on the same, large unit

True enough, there will be the odd game with a crazy combo.


How about getting Flaming Sword, Wildform, Speed of Light, and Flesh to Stone on the same unit

 kirsanth wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Needless to say

Then don't.

Not sure if you know the term or are trolling.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 kirsanth wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Needless to say

Then don't.

Not sure if you know the term or are trolling.

Both.

Your incessant need to drone on about ETC comp as a requirement to WHFB is the same.

 kirsanth wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 kirsanth wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Needless to say

Then don't.

Not sure if you know the term or are trolling.

Both.

Your incessant need to drone on about ETC comp as a requirement to WHFB is the same.

I didn't even mention ETC, just said that it's banned in comp. Read the post. Don't interpretate it.

You are correct, even most light comp bans the Fortress along with the power scroll. But nobody really takes the fortress anyway even without it being banned. Lists that do tend to have one trick with that fortress, its take 3 units. One really big deathstar and 2 really cheap ones. But all you need to do is pop the 2 cheap units and you win.

I did read it, Sigvatr, as I read all of your posts now (for the longest time you were the only person on my ignore list for the same reason).

You post a lot of good things, but almost all of it gets drowned out by that comp drivel.

When you went so far as to recognize it this time, I agreed.

 Sigvatr wrote:

I didn't even mention ETC, just said that it's banned in comp. Read the post. Don't interpretate it.

Except that's not true. I've played in a lot of comp environments that don't ban the tower.
ETC bans the tower, but ETC thankfully is not all comp events.

I've used the tower in none death star lists as well.
I squeezed it into my O&G gunline before. 10 warmachines, and a 6 story tower with my wiz-lord and BSB(flaming banner), along with 30 arrer boyz.
Thematically, it's the large watchtower holding the center of the orc lines against the advancing enemy.
It's not like 30 BS3 S3 flaming shots is overboard.

-Matt

 Grey Templar wrote:
True enough, there will be the odd game with a crazy combo.

How about getting Flaming Sword, Wildform, Speed of Light, and Flesh to Stone on the same unit

May as well throw Okkam's in there somewhere...

 kirsanth wrote:
I did read it, Sigvatr, as I read all of your posts now (for the longest time you were the only person on my ignore list for the same reason).

You post a lot of good things, but almost all of it gets drowned out by that comp drivel.

When you went so far as to recognize it this time, I agreed.

I only say "comp" because I refer to my competitive environment as it's the only one I am currently playing in. When I refer to "comp" I do not want to say "Restricted comp is the only comp, feck off with your unrestricted comp, you guys have no idea how to play comped WHFB!", I just refer to the comp environment I am used to. That's what I meant with you (mis)interpretating my post.

Furthermore, even at smaller tournaments that do not use ETC restrictions, the Folding Fortress is banned as there are a lot of very nasty combos to pull of.

So, in the end, it's a matter of perspective. When I say "comp" I refer to the comp I know which is restricted comp. It's the same way around - when you say comp and only refer to unrestricted comp, I do not feel offended either

Hope I got that explained correctly this time.

I wanted to apologies for the tone of that last post of mine.
Re-reading it, it sounds quite different than what I intended.

You bringing up comp is not quite the issue - ETC is a perfectly viable system to use, even if I think it as flawed as the game without it.

My statement was more than I got sick of reading, in most every post, that one is superior and should be used - and must be for any competitive scenario.

If a question/statement has two answer because a different rules system is used, pointing it out is one thing.
Using it as an excuse to soapbox constantly is quite another.

No, your initial post was not espousing ETC specifically, but again, when you start by acknowledging the absurdity of the stance, it should not be odd to be called on it.

Good that we kinda agree on this then and don't worry, I did not feel offended

So just to make it clear: both systems are viable. I, personally, consider ETC more viable because I, personally, consider it more balanced. I don't intend to force it on anyone though - unrestricted or restricted, both are perfectly fine ways to play and I want everyone to have fun the way he wants to!

 The Shadow wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
True enough, there will be the odd game with a crazy combo.

How about getting Flaming Sword, Wildform, Speed of Light, and Flesh to Stone on the same unit

May as well throw Okkam's in there somewhere...

Nah, I was just throwing in spells that can be cast on 2 dice.

Well, as a Daemon player I'm hoping that the new Skill Banner gets FAQ'd asap to only gain a 2++ against attacks from Magic Weapons and not my entire gakking army...
Or for the local High Elf player to at least show a modicrum of sportsmanship and not field it against my poor, poor Daemons every single game.

I have however resigned myself to the fact my first few games will be against Alarielle+friends White Lion horde backed up by the minimum amount of required Sea Guard + Frostheart/s.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You're obviously not going to be able to place terrain the way you want all the time, it was just an attempt at being amusing while pointing out that he'd get 56 spells.

Ah, I see. That *is* amusing indeed.

 kirsanth wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Needless to say

Then don't.

Why not? Are you under the impression that there must be a need for anything we post?

 Mike der Ritter wrote:
Are you under the impression that there must be a need for anything we post?

If you feel like picking that nit, there are rules against spam here; a needless post - especially from the point of that very post's author - would easily be seen as such.

Similar to how the preface "I don't mean to be rude, but. . ." does not give any extra allowance or forgiveness for the rudeness that inevitably follows.

The actual intent and thought of that part of this thread was rather thoroughly covered though, if you missed it.

"Needless to say" does not mean that there is no need to say so, it's a way to express that to you, a given fact is needless to say but you want other to know that it is.

Anyway, we already moved on

 Sigvatr wrote:

Anyway, we already moved on

And moved on we shall stay!

From what I've been hearing, the way the standard Core selection is going is that we'll probably all be shelving that massive unit of spears we have. People are talking about a Silverhelm Bus and/or Archers as their Core. Archers have, apparently, got significantly cheaper and ranged attacks, I hear, also benefit from Martial Prowess - so a 3x10 unit of Archers will be able to fire a full 30 shots. I think Ellyrian Reavers will be used a lot more as well.

I don't think that shelving the Spears would be necessary - they can be a very effective unit with some buffing. If the rumors about Teclis bear truth, you might make him an insane buff-machine if you choose the buff spells from the different lores (I am still confused here, some state that he can *pick* 1 spell from each lore, some say he can *roll* for 1 spell per lore). Sure, they got weak stats, but you'll still pump out attacks from 4 ranks or even 5 and iirc, they even got a points drop and they keep their ASF.

Good points about the archers, I'm looking forward to seeing how good they really are. Shooting in WHFB has always been on the weak side of things but the new archers might make it viable.

I wouldn't write them off so soon, we might see some interesting combos....and let's not forget, it's Mat Ward. Anything could happen! Maybe they get Killing Blow!

 Sigvatr wrote:
I don't think that shelving the Spears would be necessary - they can be a very effective unit with some buffing. If the rumors about Teclis bear truth, you might make him an insane buff-machine if you choose the buff spells from the different lores (I am still confused here, some state that he can *pick* 1 spell from each lore, some say he can *roll* for 1 spell per lore). Sure, they got weak stats, but you'll still pump out attacks from 4 ranks or even 5 and iirc, they even got a points drop and they keep their ASF.

I've heard more people saying it's "pick 1 spell per BRB Lore," making Teclis the new king of support in Fantasy.
Teclis buffing the crap out of a Spearhorde with a High Magic support caster could become pretty fearsome when you take into account the new High Magic lore attribute... Spend the first turn or two getting into position and having the High Magic caster build-up the ward save, then next turn have the 'Big T' take over and slap some buffs on them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Good points about the archers, I'm looking forward to seeing how good they really are. Shooting in WHFB has always been on the weak side of things but the new archers might make it viable.

I wouldn't write them off so soon, we might see some interesting combos....and let's not forget, it's Mat Ward. Anything could happen! Maybe they get Killing Blow!

Well, the Everqueen gets Heroic Killing Blow vs all models from the Forces of Disorder... (imagine Alarielle poking a Bloodthirster in the eye and insta-gibbing him... or how about Archaon?! )

 The Shadow wrote:

Archers have, apparently, got significantly cheaper and ranged attacks, I hear, also benefit from Martial Prowess - so a 3x10 unit of Archers will be able to fire a full 30 shots. I think Ellyrian Reavers will be used a lot more as well.

It's funny that 30 shots is totally worth taking but 25 shots is garbage.
If those archers come in at 9 points each, we may see a lot of them.

Archers to kill rank and file, phoenix to thin down buses, and lore of metal to kill armor. Makes a well rounded elf gunline.

-Matt

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
I don't think that shelving the Spears would be necessary - they can be a very effective unit with some buffing. If the rumors about Teclis bear truth, you might make him an insane buff-machine if you choose the buff spells from the different lores (I am still confused here, some state that he can *pick* 1 spell from each lore, some say he can *roll* for 1 spell per lore). Sure, they got weak stats, but you'll still pump out attacks from 4 ranks or even 5 and iirc, they even got a points drop and they keep their ASF.

I've heard more people saying it's "pick 1 spell per BRB Lore," making Teclis the new king of support in Fantasy.
Teclis buffing the crap out of a Spearhorde with a High Magic support caster could become pretty fearsome when you take into account the new High Magic lore attribute... Spend the first turn or two getting into position and having the High Magic caster build-up the ward save, then next turn have the 'Big T' take over and slap some buffs on them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Good points about the archers, I'm looking forward to seeing how good they really are. Shooting in WHFB has always been on the weak side of things but the new archers might make it viable.

I wouldn't write them off so soon, we might see some interesting combos....and let's not forget, it's Mat Ward. Anything could happen! Maybe they get Killing Blow!

Well, the Everqueen gets Heroic Killing Blow vs all models from the Forces of Disorder... (imagine Alarielle poking a Bloodthirster in the eye and insta-gibbing him... or how about Archaon?! )

Doesn't archaon have a rule that Killing Blow and HBKB don't work on him or is that the old book?

 captain collius wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
I don't think that shelving the Spears would be necessary - they can be a very effective unit with some buffing. If the rumors about Teclis bear truth, you might make him an insane buff-machine if you choose the buff spells from the different lores (I am still confused here, some state that he can *pick* 1 spell from each lore, some say he can *roll* for 1 spell per lore). Sure, they got weak stats, but you'll still pump out attacks from 4 ranks or even 5 and iirc, they even got a points drop and they keep their ASF.

I've heard more people saying it's "pick 1 spell per BRB Lore," making Teclis the new king of support in Fantasy.
Teclis buffing the crap out of a Spearhorde with a High Magic support caster could become pretty fearsome when you take into account the new High Magic lore attribute... Spend the first turn or two getting into position and having the High Magic caster build-up the ward save, then next turn have the 'Big T' take over and slap some buffs on them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Good points about the archers, I'm looking forward to seeing how good they really are. Shooting in WHFB has always been on the weak side of things but the new archers might make it viable.

I wouldn't write them off so soon, we might see some interesting combos....and let's not forget, it's Mat Ward. Anything could happen! Maybe they get Killing Blow!

Well, the Everqueen gets Heroic Killing Blow vs all models from the Forces of Disorder... (imagine Alarielle poking a Bloodthirster in the eye and insta-gibbing him... or how about Archaon?! )

Doesn't archaon have a rule that Killing Blow and HBKB don't work on him or is that the old book?

I wouldn't read to much in to it. I think we was just giving some random examples.

Experiment 626 wrote:

I've heard more people saying it's "pick 1 spell per BRB Lore," making Teclis the new king of support in Fantasy.
Teclis buffing the crap out of a Spearhorde with a High Magic support caster could become pretty fearsome when you take into account the new High Magic lore attribute... Spend the first turn or two getting into position and having the High Magic caster build-up the ward save, then next turn have the 'Big T' take over and slap some buffs on them.

I do hope you're right. Else Teclis went from completely broken to...completely broken -____-

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

Archers have, apparently, got significantly cheaper and ranged attacks, I hear, also benefit from Martial Prowess - so a 3x10 unit of Archers will be able to fire a full 30 shots. I think Ellyrian Reavers will be used a lot more as well.

It's funny that 30 shots is totally worth taking but 25 shots is garbage.
If those archers come in at 9 points each, we may see a lot of them.

Archers to kill rank and file, phoenix to thin down buses, and lore of metal to kill armor. Makes a well rounded elf gunline.

-Matt

Good point, but that was really to demonstrate the mechanics of the rule. They can move and fire those 30 shots as well though. I personally don't really like the idea of a HE gunline, but I guess we'll see just how effective all the core choices are...

 Sigvatr wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

I've heard more people saying it's "pick 1 spell per BRB Lore," making Teclis the new king of support in Fantasy.
Teclis buffing the crap out of a Spearhorde with a High Magic support caster could become pretty fearsome when you take into account the new High Magic lore attribute... Spend the first turn or two getting into position and having the High Magic caster build-up the ward save, then next turn have the 'Big T' take over and slap some buffs on them.

I do hope you're right. Else Teclis went from completely broken to...completely broken -____-

Kairos is able to choose 8 spells from all lores plus knowing all from lore of Tzeentch. I guess Teclis will be similar and not be able to be "Loremaster" of all 8 lores plus HE lore. He might even has to roll for his spells. But Kairos is close to 600pts and cant hide in some core infantry. Well, we will see but I dont believe Mat will break the HE book that hardcore. The new DoC book is pretty ok I´d say and he wrote that too.

 captain collius wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
I don't think that shelving the Spears would be necessary - they can be a very effective unit with some buffing. If the rumors about Teclis bear truth, you might make him an insane buff-machine if you choose the buff spells from the different lores (I am still confused here, some state that he can *pick* 1 spell from each lore, some say he can *roll* for 1 spell per lore). Sure, they got weak stats, but you'll still pump out attacks from 4 ranks or even 5 and iirc, they even got a points drop and they keep their ASF.

I've heard more people saying it's "pick 1 spell per BRB Lore," making Teclis the new king of support in Fantasy.
Teclis buffing the crap out of a Spearhorde with a High Magic support caster could become pretty fearsome when you take into account the new High Magic lore attribute... Spend the first turn or two getting into position and having the High Magic caster build-up the ward save, then next turn have the 'Big T' take over and slap some buffs on them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Good points about the archers, I'm looking forward to seeing how good they really are. Shooting in WHFB has always been on the weak side of things but the new archers might make it viable.

I wouldn't write them off so soon, we might see some interesting combos....and let's not forget, it's Mat Ward. Anything could happen! Maybe they get Killing Blow!

Well, the Everqueen gets Heroic Killing Blow vs all models from the Forces of Disorder... (imagine Alarielle poking a Bloodthirster in the eye and insta-gibbing him... or how about Archaon?! )

Doesn't archaon have a rule that Killing Blow and HBKB don't work on him or is that the old book?

No, he has a 3+ ward save & his mount makes him a Monstrous Beast. (so no regular Killing Blow, but the Everqueen's eye-poke of doom can lead to epic halarity!)


@Gorbad: So invalidating the entire Daemons of Chaos book isn't enough shinanigans?!

Really hoping that all these bonus against Forces of Destruction turn out to be nonsense. After all, HE already have fear against OnG, bojuses against DE and a banner of immune to DoC. Why on earth would they need more?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Unless ofc, there is an army wide rule that Forces of Destruction get AP against HE.... that would balance a lot

Experiment 626 wrote:

 captain collius wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
I don't think that shelving the Spears would be necessary - they can be a very effective unit with some buffing. If the rumors about Teclis bear truth, you might make him an insane buff-machine if you choose the buff spells from the different lores (I am still confused here, some state that he can *pick* 1 spell from each lore, some say he can *roll* for 1 spell per lore). Sure, they got weak stats, but you'll still pump out attacks from 4 ranks or even 5 and iirc, they even got a points drop and they keep their ASF.

I've heard more people saying it's "pick 1 spell per BRB Lore," making Teclis the new king of support in Fantasy.
Teclis buffing the crap out of a Spearhorde with a High Magic support caster could become pretty fearsome when you take into account the new High Magic lore attribute... Spend the first turn or two getting into position and having the High Magic caster build-up the ward save, then next turn have the 'Big T' take over and slap some buffs on them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Good points about the archers, I'm looking forward to seeing how good they really are. Shooting in WHFB has always been on the weak side of things but the new archers might make it viable.

I wouldn't write them off so soon, we might see some interesting combos....and let's not forget, it's Mat Ward. Anything could happen! Maybe they get Killing Blow!

Well, the Everqueen gets Heroic Killing Blow vs all models from the Forces of Disorder... (imagine Alarielle poking a Bloodthirster in the eye and insta-gibbing him... or how about Archaon?! )

Doesn't archaon have a rule that Killing Blow and HBKB don't work on him or is that the old book?

No, he has a 3+ ward save & his mount makes him a Monstrous Beast. (so no regular Killing Blow, but the Everqueen's eye-poke of doom can lead to epic halarity!)


@Gorbad: So invalidating the entire Daemons of Chaos book isn't enough shinanigans?!

Well, if the rumours about that banner are correct I will cry a lot for sure. But I cant believe that banner will exist. I mean, it will doom DoC but not just DoC and even if Mat made some really bad books it seems he "learned" a bit. So I hope it wont be that crazy with the new HE book. DoC had a broken book, soon after a new one came and that´s not broken. Some crazy stuff in it but all in all it´s pretty chaotic with tons of random effects/rules. So yes, I am pretty sure the HE book wont cripple Warhammer again. I still have nightmares from the "pre step up rule" era combined with HE ASF when I was forced to play Empire gunline pretty much every game.

Niteware wrote:
Really hoping that all these bonus against Forces of Destruction turn out to be nonsense. After all, HE already have fear against OnG, bojuses against DE and a banner of immune to DoC. Why on earth would they need more?

DE have bonuses against HE as well and Fear Elves only applies to Goblins and there's a whole thread in General Discussion in which, amidst the cries of lament, you should be able to find reasons why the Banner of The World Dragon is not that bad. There's a few bonuses here and there, but it's nothing game breaking.

I hope we have our friends in Europe post quickly the new changes. I'm just impatient lol.

 The Shadow wrote:

Niteware wrote:
Really hoping that all these bonus against Forces of Destruction turn out to be nonsense. After all, HE already have fear against OnG, bojuses against DE and a banner of immune to DoC. Why on earth would they need more?

DE have bonuses against HE as well and Fear Elves only applies to Goblins and there's a whole thread in General Discussion in which, amidst the cries of lament, you should be able to find reasons why the Banner of The World Dragon is not that bad. There's a few bonuses here and there, but it's nothing game breaking.

Yeah, because telling every single Daemon player to go screw themselves and just buy a brand new army isn't too much of an issue...

Harlariously enough, my other Fantasy armies are VC's, Skaven and... High Elves!!!
So I can shelve three and join in the fun with the one that killed my other three. Ironic, or just bad luck?!

Tagony wrote:
I hope we have our friends in Europe post quickly the new changes. I'm just impatient lol.

They usually do but, rarely do vomit it out onto Dakka

Experiment 626 wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

Niteware wrote:
Really hoping that all these bonus against Forces of Destruction turn out to be nonsense. After all, HE already have fear against OnG, bojuses against DE and a banner of immune to DoC. Why on earth would they need more?

DE have bonuses against HE as well and Fear Elves only applies to Goblins and there's a whole thread in General Discussion in which, amidst the cries of lament, you should be able to find reasons why the Banner of The World Dragon is not that bad. There's a few bonuses here and there, but it's nothing game breaking.

Yeah, because telling every single Daemon player to go screw themselves and just buy a brand new army isn't too much of an issue...

The same way that no one won any tournaments with the old 40k Daemons Codex because a tailored Grey Knight list could completely destroy them before they got to deploy?

To be fair, GK are an entire army designed to ruin the game for DoC whereas we are talking about 1 magic banner here.

 Sigvatr wrote:
To be fair, GK are an entire army designed to ruin the game for DoC whereas we are talking about 1 magic banner here.

EXACTLY.

If the entire High Elf army got a 2+ Ward against Magical Attacks, I wouldn't class it as fair, and nor would I class it as "a few bonuses here and there". I've explained this innumerable times:

Chances are your HE opponent will take this banner. If he takes it on a massive unit then you, as a Daemon Player, avoid it as best as you can. Chuck chaff at it, redirect it, manoeuver around its sizeable bulk. If you haven't learned to death with deathstars this edition, then you've got a real problem. If your opponent takes it on a small unit, then you also try to avoid it but, although it would be harder, this is a smaller portion that's immune to your attacks.

Some people, especially you Experiment 626, really need to chill out about this banner.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
To be fair, GK are an entire army designed to ruin the game for DoC whereas we are talking about 1 magic banner here.

EXACTLY.

If the entire High Elf army got a 2+ Ward against Magical Attacks, I wouldn't class it as fair, and nor would I class it as "a few bonuses here and there". I've explained this innumerable times:

Chances are your HE opponent will take this banner. If he takes it on a massive unit then you, as a Daemon Player, avoid it as best as you can. Chuck chaff at it, redirect it, manoeuver around its sizeable bulk. If you haven't learned to death with deathstars this edition, then you've got a real problem. If your opponent takes it on a small unit, then you also try to avoid it but, although it would be harder, this is a smaller portion that's immune to your attacks.

Some people, especially you Experiment 626, really need to chill out about this banner.

What what about non-tourny games, you know, the bulk of Fantasy games in general? Things like;
- Leagues where you know your opponent ahead of time
- Campaigns where you also know your opponent ahead of time
- Regular games where you show up and make your list at the store

What's to stop a High Elf player at this point, (or even in a tournament), from simply shoving all their characters into the Skill banner unit and thus deny a Daemon or Wood Elf opponent 50% or more of their army? (god forbid you face a list with 75% of their pts safely squirrled away under the banner...)

Chaff it? I love this suggestion. Please feel free to point me towards the supposed "chaff" in the new Daemons book, because our cheapest troop is still 11pts a pop. Beasts cost more than the damn banner itself. Furies no longer skirmish and thus are more vulnerable to being shot to bits. Daemonic Instability means we can't tarpit worth jack, especially against an elite High Elf unit that now benefits from an additional rank of attacks...
Plus, you keep seeming to ignore the fact that "just feed it chaff" is simply handing the HE player VP's. If the High Elf player has 1000pts locked away safe and sound from the Daemon player, and I have to then feed it at least 250+ odd pts, (and more likely I'll be forced to feed it upwards of 300-400pts because Daemons aren't cheap), then how am I supposed to go about killing the other 1000pts I can actually hurt without giving up more than another 600pts while doing so?

And again, you along with everyone else who simply answer, "herp-durp re-direct it/move around it" seem to convienantly forget that High Elves have also been handed an easy loophole to completely avoid those tactics with Walk Between Worlds. (20" ethereal move) So even after clogging the unit's movement lanes up and boxing them in, they can simply breeze right through your blockers and hit what they want anyways...
Yes, it's not 100% garantee they get it off/it doesn't get dispelled every turn, but against Daemons esepcially, it's a helluva lot easier since we need to spend 500+ pts for a Lv4 wizard to counter the likelyhood of the HE player rolling their spells at a +3 or +5 to-cast bonus.

If you can't understand why this banner is horrific for the game and how completely invalidating an entire army is stupid, then I weep for the future of Boringhammer where we boil the game down to pts denial & #6 spells ftw...

Experiment 626 wrote:
What what about non-tourny games, you know, the bulk of Fantasy games in general? Things like;
- Leagues where you know your opponent ahead of time
- Campaigns where you also know your opponent ahead of time
- Regular games where you show up and make your list at the store

Those are pretty much the three examples I would use as the least likely to see things generally regarded as cheese - at least without knowing beforehand it is possible.

Sure, I actually am building my TK army around Khalida (literally and thematically) but would I ever show up at random games only bringing power lists that include her?

No.

If I did, would I expect anyone besides someone who also brings such a list to play me (more than once, assuming I don't tell them first)?
No.

All of those situations you should actually discuss the game you are wanting to play with your opponent.
A tourney is one of the few times that you have little to no say.

I'm just hoping some of the stuff (BotWD) doesn't get banned straight off the bat. I actually want to use some of the cool items this time.

 Sigvatr wrote:
To be fair, GK are an entire army designed to ruin the game for DoC whereas we are talking about 1 magic banner here.

And said GK army was NOT a good all comer list. It would fail against most other armies meaning it was a poor competitive choice.

 kirsanth wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
What what about non-tourny games, you know, the bulk of Fantasy games in general? Things like;
- Leagues where you know your opponent ahead of time
- Campaigns where you also know your opponent ahead of time
- Regular games where you show up and make your list at the store

Those are pretty much the three examples I would use as the least likely to see things generally regarded as cheese - at least without knowing beforehand it is possible.

Sure, I actually am building my TK army around Khalida (literally and thematically) but would I ever show up at random games only bringing power lists that include her?

No.

If I did, would I expect anyone besides someone who also brings such a list to play me (more than once, assuming I don't tell them first)?
No.

All of those situations you should actually discuss the game you are wanting to play with your opponent.
A tourney is one of the few times that you have little to no say.

Except that most Leagues/Campaigns offer prizes for finishing in the top spots, meaning people will always bring whatever gives them 'an edge' because when all is said and done, we all like winning free expensive plastic crack at the end of the day...

Sure, and people know going in what is allowed and what is not.
If you have such issues, do not participate in a league that uses rules you find offensive.

As for campaigns. . .I think we are discussing different things. Every campaign I have been involved with has been narrative. Many times we have added layers of cheese where none exists, and every time everyone has agreed upon the "extra" rules.

There is a difference between having an edge and being a jerk. It sounds like you either play with or are afraid you will play with jerks.

I find your follow up to be more akin related to variations on a tournament, rather than examples of "the bulk of Fantasy games in general", actually.

Well, I got a look at the new book today. It seems like a good book that will allow a ton of different themes and playstyles. I can't speak to it's power level but reavers and silver helms as core just sounds fun to try out

The Banner can be confirmed .... I cant believe he did that! Well, time to get around HE with my new DoC army ...

 Gorbad wrote:
The Banner can be confirmed .... I cant believe he did that! Well, time to get around HE with my new DoC army ...

Most important question of all:
The new High Magic lore attribute... Is it just +1 ward save until the begining of the next magic phase, or is it like the new Warpflame rule's regen and just a perma +1 ward save for the rest of the game?

If it's the latter... Hello Alarielle SkillBannerstars of dooooooom!

It's until the next magic phase.

And please, skillbanner makes no sense. Banner of the World's Doomed makes more sense.

 Gorbad wrote:
The Banner can be confirmed .... I cant believe he did that! Well, time to get around HE with my new DoC army ...

Paint the banner to look like this:

Should have a big Mat Ward face on it.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Should have a big Mat Ward face on it.

Agreed!

Athough it'll have to a picture of him sticking his tounge out at you while pointing & the words "You Got Wardhammered!" on it.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Should have a big Mat Ward face on it.

Agreed!

Athough it'll have to a picture of him sticking his tounge out at you while pointing & the words "You Got Wardhammered!" on it.

You Got Warded.

-Matt

Got to say, having read the new rules over and over again, they aren't as over powered as you think.

Tyrion and Teclis are still powerful, but not as bad as they used to be.
The everqueen is good, but she is weak toughness wise, like all elves.
The new bows are Horrible. S4, volley fire, flaming and magical, -1 to AS for forces of destruction. The sisters are BS5, and put a handmaiden of BS7 in the unitm with their quick to fire special rule, you have a very nasty shooty unit.
Eltharion's griffon has ASF,
The banner is useless against nonmagical stuff, and it's still a 2+, I can't remember the number of dead terminators to bolter fire. After all, if you wound the unit with loads of magic, they'll fail one in 6, but it may be more.
The new magic is fun, and can be damaging, but there are stuff in there unless you read it carefully, must be used correctly.
Items are cool, and best of all nearly everything is a bit cheaper. I came up with a 800pt list with:
Handmaiden 110pts, 10xLSG 150pts, Reavers 105pts, Swordmasters 260pts and Sisters 175pts.

I could make a nastier one, but trust me it's a good balanced codex after all Teclis is only S2 and T2 and can go down to S1 and T1 if he uses the staff.

Left Hand of the Pheonix wrote:

Eltharion's griffon has ASF

Does it mention why in the fluff or is it just an innocuous inclusion in the unit entry?

Plus, can Eltharion and Stormwing still fit into a 2000pt force?

Left Hand of the Pheonix wrote:
Got to say, having read the new rules over and over again, they aren't as over powered as you think.

Tyrion and Teclis are still powerful, but not as bad as they used to be.
The everqueen is good, but she is weak toughness wise, like all elves.
The new bows are Horrible. S4, volley fire, flaming and magical, -1 to AS for forces of destruction. The sisters are BS5, and put a handmaiden of BS7 in the unitm with their quick to fire special rule, you have a very nasty shooty unit.
Eltharion's griffon has ASF,
The banner is useless against nonmagical stuff, and it's still a 2+, I can't remember the number of dead terminators to bolter fire. After all, if you wound the unit with loads of magic, they'll fail one in 6, but it may be more.
The new magic is fun, and can be damaging, but there are stuff in there unless you read it carefully, must be used correctly.
Items are cool, and best of all nearly everything is a bit cheaper. I came up with a 800pt list with:
Handmaiden 110pts, 10xLSG 150pts, Reavers 105pts, Swordmasters 260pts and Sisters 175pts.

I could make a nastier one, but trust me it's a good balanced codex after all Teclis is only S2 and T2 and can go down to S1 and T1 if he uses the staff.

S4 BS 5 sounds pretty good. AP vs chaos warriors is awesome. That's effectively move and fire handguns, at 30" with +2 to hit and magic hits.
If you told an empire player, you can have +2 to hit on handgunners, fire after moving and have the hits be magical, they would piss themselves.
As for as that banner goes, it does make dragons stubborn which is good. As for the terminator comparison, it's a bit flawed. Terminators are priced for their 2+ save. Would you think it's fair if I could buy a platoon a 2+ save for 50 points?
Yes, the save is only vs magic. Totally crippling enemy characters for 50 points is awesome. Totally crippling a daemon army for 50 points is stupid.

-Matt

Just had a quick first look (a few hours) at the army book. Overall, it's got some nice changes and some things need to be evaluated before getting a final verdict

Bows are good, but the advantage vs. armies of destruction is stupid. Overall, they are a tad bit too much with flaming ,magic, S4 and their bonus to hit. Teclis remains about as powerful as he has always been. He can still reliably ID hordes / tarpits with his 2 free miscasts and then becomes a very reliable and effective buff machine.

The banner is stupidly overpowered and I expect it to be the first thing to either be banned or nerfed in restricted meta.

Interesting army book, but Mat Ward's terrible lack of a sense for balance shines through at some places. We'll have a rules meeting next week, discussing the new army book. I'll be interested in some more perspectives on it.

Experiment 626 wrote:

What what about non-tourny games, you know, the bulk of Fantasy games in general? Things like;
- Leagues where you know your opponent ahead of time
- Campaigns where you also know your opponent ahead of time
- Regular games where you show up and make your list at the store

What's to stop a High Elf player at this point, (or even in a tournament), from simply shoving all their characters into the Skill banner unit and thus deny a Daemon or Wood Elf opponent 50% or more of their army? (god forbid you face a list with 75% of their pts safely squirrled away under the banner...)

If you weren't in a tournament situation, and you knew you were fighting daemons, you'd be a complete d*ck to take the banner. In such a position, I would not even consider it.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Chaff it? I love this suggestion. Please feel free to point me towards the supposed "chaff" in the new Daemons book, because our cheapest troop is still 11pts a pop. Beasts cost more than the damn banner itself. Furies no longer skirmish and thus are more vulnerable to being shot to bits. Daemonic Instability means we can't tarpit worth jack, especially against an elite High Elf unit that now benefits from an additional rank of attacks...
Plus, you keep seeming to ignore the fact that "just feed it chaff" is simply handing the HE player VP's. If the High Elf player has 1000pts locked away safe and sound from the Daemon player, and I have to then feed it at least 250+ odd pts, (and more likely I'll be forced to feed it upwards of 300-400pts because Daemons aren't cheap), then how am I supposed to go about killing the other 1000pts I can actually hurt without giving up more than another 600pts while doing so?

11 Pts, huh? 110 Points is not that expensive for a chaff unit, me presuming you must take at least 10 models in said unit. You may be giving the HE Player a free 110 VPs, but that's a lot better than letting it charge a 300+ point unit of yours.

Experiment 626 wrote:

And again, you along with everyone else who simply answer, "herp-durp re-direct it/move around it" seem to convienantly forget that High Elves have also been handed an easy loophole to completely avoid those tactics with Walk Between Worlds. (20" ethereal move) So even after clogging the unit's movement lanes up and boxing them in, they can simply breeze right through your blockers and hit what they want anyways...
Yes, it's not 100% garantee they get it off/it doesn't get dispelled every turn, but against Daemons esepcially, it's a helluva lot easier since we need to spend 500+ pts for a Lv4 wizard to counter the likelyhood of the HE player rolling their spells at a +3 or +5 to-cast bonus.

If you're really worried, you can dispel it. You may not be able to dispel anything else, but with the current magic system, if you want a spell dispelled you can almost always do it. Dispel Scrolls exist for a reason. Furthermore, for every turn the unit is moving thanks to this spell, that's a turn less that it's charging in and killing stuff.

BUT, like Sigvatr says, it is likely to be banned anyways.

After looking through my own army book, I am a little disappointed in the Shadow Warriors (thought they'd generally be better) and in the Silver Helms (thought they'd be cheaper). I do like the Sisters of Avelorn though, I think I may be getting a unit of them. Oh, and Book of Hoeth is brilliant.

Also updated the Thread Title

How bad are the Shadow Warriors?

They're BS5 and slightly cheaper than before. Might actually be playable.

 Kanluwen wrote:
How bad are the Shadow Warriors?

I still find them underwhelming though. They can only dish out a single strength 3 attack at both range and in combat, which isn't even that threatening to War Machine Crews and the like. That said, upon closer inspection, the Shadow Walker can take a Magic Weapon, so you could give him the Reaver Bow. 3 S4 shots from BS5 is pretty nice, I guess.

 The Shadow wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

What what about non-tourny games, you know, the bulk of Fantasy games in general? Things like;
- Leagues where you know your opponent ahead of time
- Campaigns where you also know your opponent ahead of time
- Regular games where you show up and make your list at the store

What's to stop a High Elf player at this point, (or even in a tournament), from simply shoving all their characters into the Skill banner unit and thus deny a Daemon or Wood Elf opponent 50% or more of their army? (god forbid you face a list with 75% of their pts safely squirrled away under the banner...)

If you weren't in a tournament situation, and you knew you were fighting daemons, you'd be a complete d*ck to take the banner. In such a position, I would not even consider it.

When you pay money to enter leagues/campaigns and there prizes involved, being a d*ck and tailoring to trounce your opponent is common place.

 The Shadow wrote:
11 Pts, huh? 110 Points is not that expensive for a chaff unit, me presuming you must take at least 10 models in said unit. You may be giving the HE Player a free 110 VPs, but that's a lot better than letting it charge a 300+ point unit of yours.

If you're really worried, you can dispel it. You may not be able to dispel anything else, but with the current magic system, if you want a spell dispelled you can almost always do it. Dispel Scrolls exist for a reason. Furthermore, for every turn the unit is moving thanks to this spell, that's a turn less that it's charging in and killing stuff.

BUT, like Sigvatr says, it is likely to be banned anyways.

110pts for one unit may not seem like much, but consider that you'll likely have to feed it at least 2 if not 3 such units to keep it off your back for the entire game... That's upto 330 'free' victory pts right there. If a HE player has tucked 50% or more of their army away under the banner, I've just handed them roughly 25% of what they need to kill to win.
And keep in mind the new FAQ: if your unit pops to Instability, the enemy can now make a normal overrun move, so feeding it 3 lone Beasts of Nurgle isn't going to accomplish much either.

Furies are also pretty pants for re-directing against new HE's, since they no longer skirmish, meaning they're nothing but archer-bait against a BotWD army. (and Reavers can keep up with them since they're Core now, while Furies idiotically got moved to Special )

And Daemons have no access to any form of magic protection beyond our wizards and rolling up an 11 for Reign of Chaos... No Dispel Scroll, no Feedback Scroll, no Earthing Rod, no nothing. Just the need to spend a minimum of 400pts to even get a naked Lv4 onto the table! (and that's for a completely naked Tzeentch Daemon Prince)

Keep in mind too, not everyone plays in a comp system. Over here, it's very uncommon and the vast majority of events basically let you use anything as long as it's in the army book.

Experiment 626 wrote:

When you pay money to enter leagues/campaigns and there prizes involved, being a d*ck and tailoring to trounce your opponent is common place.

You just brought up a question saying "what about non-tourney games" and I replied about non-tourney games and now you've just replied about tournament games...

 The Shadow wrote:

I've just handed them roughly 25% of what they need to kill to win.

And that's them not making their points back and that's them not destroying a larger portion of your army.

 The Shadow wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

When you pay money to enter leagues/campaigns and there prizes involved, being a d*ck and tailoring to trounce your opponent is common place.

You just brought up a question saying "what about non-tourney games" and I replied about non-tourney games and now you've just replied about tournament games...

League/Campaign gaming isn't a tournament.
It isn't just a day or two-day long afaire with pre-set blind lists that cannot be changed betwen matches, competing against eachother and potentially including soft scores within the overall scoring matrix.
In a league or campaign, you know full well ahead of time who you're going to be facing, not to mention they tend to run over a month or more. (our local GW store when we still had one would run 3 month long escalation campaigns, typically with a nominal entry fee and prizes for the top 3 finishers)

There's nothing to stop people from building tailored lists and smashing face, becuase in the end, the only concern typically displayed during games is simply to win so you can hopefully earn-back your initial investment or even make a few free dollars in product out of it.

Though it might in the end it might be fair to think of leagues/campaigns as a very, very prolonged type of tournament.

Are the Sisters of Avelorn expensive? Those abilities sound like they should be 30 to 40 ppm, hope they aren't much under that.
Banner of the Weak Douche is obviously ridiculous, should be nerfed to 5++ or magic and magic weapons carried by characters, or the unit not allowed to include characters.

Niteware wrote:
Are the Sisters of Avelorn expensive? Those abilities sound like they should be 30 to 40 ppm, hope they aren't much under that.
Banner of the Weak Douche is obviously ridiculous, should be nerfed to 5++ or magic and magic weapons carried by characters, or the unit not allowed to include characters.

The Banner of the World Dragon does have a disadvantage in that it can also give enemy Dragons the "Stubborn" special rule.

Something that bears mentioning that I would be far, far more worried about an army with Alarielle having the "Banner of Avelorn"(as long as Alarielle is alive, the banner is in effect. Spells from the Lore of Light and the Lore of Life cast by a friendly Wizard targeting a unit containing the Banner of Avelorn receive a 4+ bonus to cast. The effect ceases as soon as she is slain.) and a big block of Sisters of Avelorn with a Handmaiden( grants the "Quick to Fire" special rule to a unit of Sisters in addition to the Handmaiden herself) along with the Horn of Isha (One use only. Can be used at the start of the High Elf player's Movement phase. For the remainder of the turn, all models in the bearer's unit receive a +1 To hit Bonus on all shooting and close combat attacks).

Those two Heirloom Magic Items are only available with Alarielle in the army.

In regards to the Maiden Guard themselves? They're the same points per model as Shadow Warriors. Both units have options of 5+ models rather than 10+, so it is possible to make a minimum sized unit of each from the Shadow Warriors box.

THE SAME POINTS AS SHADOW WARRIORS? ARE YOU HAVING A GIRAFFE? Those stats for almost no points is as sickening as the banner, the under priced core and the over powered phoenixes. Sheesh.

Sisters of Avelorn are a Rare choice rather than Special like the Shadow Warriors.

Possibly 30 would be overkill, but they should be at least mid 20 ppm for hits on 2s, -2 to AS


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh well, at least HE don't have really killy CC. Wait...
Well at least they aren't awesome casters. Wait..
Well at least you can really, really hurt them with magic. Oh...
Well at least they suck at shooting. Hmmmm.....
Guess it is Purple Sun, to take advantage of those low I values. Oops, no - that doesn;t work either.

Points denial FTW / FTD

After my first skim of it, I think overall it is a pretty balanced codex. Teclis and the Book of Hoeth got ratcheted down to less insane levels and I notice a high instance of one-use items all over the place.

The big elephant in the room, of course, is the Banner of the World Dragon. I'll be the first to say that against Demons, it is going to be a seriously overpowered thing, but I think as a whole, it will not be as all crushing as some are making out to be. I suspect it will be in a lot of lists, but unless it is against DoC, it won't be a major game-changer.

Niteware wrote:
Possibly 30 would be overkill, but they should be at least mid 20 ppm for hits on 2s, -2 to AS


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh well, at least HE don't have really killy CC. Wait...
Well at least they aren't awesome casters. Wait..
Well at least you can really, really hurt them with magic. Oh...
Well at least they suck at shooting. Hmmmm.....
Guess it is Purple Sun, to take advantage of those low I values. Oops, no - that doesn;t work either.

Points denial FTW / FTD

To be fair, I don't think the new Maiden Girls are going to be running over much in close combat, their armour piercing is only against the Forces of Disorder AND trying to even deathstar them is seriously going to eat into your maximum Rare units alotment.
If HE's are going to try and deathstar, it'll be with either an all mounted Dragon Prince bus, White Lions, or a pts-denial Phoenix Guard unit.

Still, I think the BotWD is a smoke screen for preventing us from really seeing the entire picture...
Martial Prowess alone is going to be painful to play against, since High Elves can now reduce their frontage while still gaining attacks!
Not to mention a general pts reduction on alot of the good stuff. (ie: White Lions are now 1 Skaven Slave cheaper than before!)
More magic items than anyone else and some are pretty damn cheap for their effects to boot...

The High Magic lore may be getting scoffed at right now by alot of HE players, but I think there's plenty of solid potential there for it to be outright brutal, espeically since mages also get a free +1 to cast bonus with it.

Some curious of note as well. On the Phoenixes, if a character is mounted on them and the Phoenix dies first, both the character and Phoenix are removed for the respawn thing.

Are the Sea Guard a viable choice now? Is the sky chariot worth the points?

Tagony wrote:
Are the Sea Guard a viable choice now?

I would say so. They're 2 points more than a Spearman and a point more than an Archer.

Is the sky chariot worth the points?

I think so. It's kind of nice, and the ability to use it as a mount for a Lothern Sea Helm is kind of nice.

OMG! Check this one out:
a) Cast Enfeebling Foe on opponent's unit for -D3S
b) Hit them w/Frostheart Phoenix for additional -1S
c) Enemy now has S0 and instantly implodes!

Can we call the book broken yet?!

Thanks kanluwen. I don't get my book until Monday so I have to live through you guys for the weekend. I just did not want another fiasco like with my Dark Angels. Buy a flyer and have no place to use it.

Experiment 626 wrote:
OMG! Check this one out:
a) Cast Enfeebling Foe on opponent's unit for -D3S
b) Hit them w/Frostheart Phoenix for additional -1S
c) Enemy now has S0 and instantly implodes!

Can we call the book broken yet?!

Or you can read the Frostheart Phoenix's rules and see "to a minimum of 1" and calm down.

Lolz @ stubborn being some kind of weakness for the banner. I'll counter that 50pt banner with a 300pt dragon!

Ok, the new Swordmaster Lord is stupid.

He gets all 8 Signature spells.


And High Magic is actually good, stupid good.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Lolz @ stubborn being some kind of weakness for the banner. I'll counter that 50pt banner with a 300pt dragon!

I would not exactly call "Enemy dragons get Stubborn" an advantage when someone decides to throw a dragon at you.

I'm kind of annoyed that the High Elves got so many exclusive magic items. Its close to 20 including the Everqueen, I believe. I had thought that the 8th edition scheme on magic items was just a few themed items for the Army book, then use the extensive list in the BRB. All of the hardback books got maybe 5-6 items until now. I get that it fits the theme that High Elves are almost the best at making magic items, but its kind of lame for folks that lost some magic items that they liked. Not particularly game breaking, I think, but just annoying.

I'm tempted to search back in my post history where some of us discussed this very issue and predicted the small Magic item sections would only last 4 or so books and the power level of the newer items would increase.

Edit: Magic item count is 15 items, including Heirloom items.

Gotta say I'm intrigued by the Heirloom Item thing. Hopefully we see it pop up more.

Well guys, every 8th army book was incredibly well-balanced so far. Enter Mat Ward breaking this rule. Well played.

The Sisters of Avelorn are T3 elves with a 6+ armour save. Shoot them with anything and they'll fall over.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Well guys, every 8th army book was incredibly well-balanced so far. Enter Mat Ward breaking this rule. Well played.

The book has been out for a whopping one day. Would it hurt you too much to stop your bashing until people have had a chance to test the book and see how powerful it is here in real life?

Check my previous post, I said I did.

The HE army book, however, is the only 8th army book where even at first read, some things just get at your face.

And really, Mat f-ing Ward.

 NELS1031 wrote:
I'm kind of annoyed that the High Elves got so many exclusive magic items. Its close to 20 including the Everqueen, I believe. I had thought that the 8th edition scheme on magic items was just a few themed items for the Army book, then use the extensive list in the BRB. All of the hardback books got maybe 5-6 items until now. I get that it fits the theme that High Elves are almost the best at making magic items, but its kind of lame for folks that lost some magic items that they liked. Not particularly game breaking, I think, but just annoying.

I'm tempted to search back in my post history where some of us discussed this very issue and predicted the small Magic item sections would only last 4 or so books and the power level of the newer items would increase.

Edit: Magic item count is 15 items, including Heirloom items.

Gotta say I'm intrigued by the Heirloom Item thing. Hopefully we see it pop up more.

Yeah, that's totally different than the 9 items + 14 bloodlines that vampires got, and another 11 unique items on special characters.

15 doesn't seem that bad for high elves.

Experiment 626 wrote:
League/Campaign gaming isn't a tournament.

Yes, and this is my point. In any situation where you are not trying to WAAC (for prizes and the like) bringing the BotWD against a Daemon Army you know you will be playing is not a very nice thing to do at all. Sadly, I cannot do anything about this.

Niteware wrote:Possibly 30 would be overkill, but they should be at least mid 20 ppm for hits on 2s, -2 to AS

They're really not that good. Compare them to Dwarf Thunders. Dwarf Thunderers are the same amount of points with a S4 Armour Piercing Weapon with the same range. This weapon also gives them +1 to hit, so, effectively, they're on BS5 as well. Thunderers lose out on flaming and magical attacks but they gain the advantages of being T4 with a 5+ Save, not T3 with a 6+ save and they're Core, not Rare.

Grey Templar wrote:
And High Magic is actually good, stupid good.

Really?

The Lore Attribute is awesome, but that's where the complete awesomeness ends. Walk Between Worlds is pretty good but you can only wheel, not reform facing any way like you can with Hand of Gork, so it's not that good. Drain Magic and Arcane Unforging are all pretty good spells as well, and Soul Quench is a solid Magic Missile. Hand of Glory is underwhelming as HE tend to have those characteristics aplenty and why not take Shadow and be able to guarantee getting Melkoth's which has pretty much the same effect. Tempest is good, but S3 is underwhelming. Apotheosis is situational, though useful, and Fiery Convocation is just inferior to Dwellers in most respects.

It's a good lore, but certainly not "stupid good". I may still stick with Life/Shadow. Flesh to Stone or The Withering seem far more useful to me, though, that may be just how I like to play.

Fiery Convocation doesn't do the same thing as Dwellers though. It's vastly superior against stuff like slaves. Dwellers kill 50% and is then done. Fiery Convocation kills 66% of the block AND sticks around. It's a really powerful, albeit expensive, spell that doubles as magic defense, just like Flames of the Phoenix in the current book.

Can I repeat my question to those who have the book...

Do Eltharion and Stormwing still fit into a 2000pt army?

First impression...GK have arrived. Second thoughts, its 8th and ETC will comp them into a shiny gold turd because it is quite obvious GW does not have anyone capable of balanced rules writing left on their staff.

Nah, that's not true. All other 8th army books are really well-written. It's just Mat Ward being an a-hole and stuff.

Oh, and High Elves wizards can now wear magic armor. Whoop whoop. Dragon Mages at least.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Nah, that's not true. All other 8th army books are really well-written. It's just Mat Ward being an a-hole and stuff.

Oh, and High Elves wizards can now wear magic armor. Whoop whoop. Dragon Mages at least.

Well, technically Dragon Mages who were ment to be fighty wizards should have had the option for armour in the last book... (just like Vampires should never have been forced to pay 20pts just to get heavy armour+shield!)

But I do agree that both of Ward's Fantasy books are rediculous...
Daemons are laughably horrific in their internal balancing - we may as well just throw everything Khorne & Tzeentch bar ambusing Flesh Hounds, Skillcannons & LoC out the window and be done with it!
The Reign of Comedy table is a double kick to the junk of the Daemon player and needed to be FAQ'd to even work as intended because Ward can't write proper fething english...
Daemonic Generals and BSB's can only ever effect 25% of the book's units! (but only Nurgle is really viable as a mono-god list)
Locus abilities overall are horrifically overcosted, and Herald themselves are the squishiest characters in the entire game bar a Nurgle Palanquin rider.
The way Daemonic Gifts work is beyond attrocious when you compare it to how well it was implimented in the 40k book... For example, not only am I forced to spend 500+ pts to put a decent Lv4 on the table, but now I only get a 16% chance to get cannonball protection?!

High Elves on the other have no real 'weak' choices. Everything for the most part is readily competitive and there's alot of hard choices to be made in list design. (a really good thing!) There's a couple OTT special characters for sure, and the BotWD is laughably undercosted and silly in it's effects.
But overall High Elves are in a really good standing right now, and will probably be right up there with Ogres & WoC in terms of their competitiveness.



It just feels like Ward didn't give a crap about Daemons and didn't want to actually be bothered with the project, while it's readily clear that he was highly enthused about the High Elves and has thus given them a very strong and vibrant book that can build almost themed list you could ever dream up.

 Flashman wrote:
Can I repeat my question to those who have the book...

Do Eltharion and Stormwing still fit into a 2000pt army?

He's 5 points cheaper coming in at 490 with stormwing so to answer your question, yes

 pities2004 wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
Can I repeat my question to those who have the book...

Do Eltharion and Stormwing still fit into a 2000pt army?

He's 5 points cheaper coming in at 490 with stormwing so to answer your question, yes

Thank you

 Sigvatr wrote:
Check my previous post, I said I did.

The HE army book, however, is the only 8th army book where even at first read, some things just get at your face.

And really, Mat f-ing Ward.

but, but, but, we need to play with army for 6 months before we can know anything!

/sarcasm off

Pretty much whatever happens now we are stuck with an edition that has a huge disparity in power between the best and worst books. Another problem for sure will be that the power of the HE book is going to influence the power of books down the road.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Nah, that's not true. All other 8th army books are really well-written. It's just Mat Ward being an a-hole and stuff.

Oh, and High Elves wizards can now wear magic armor. Whoop whoop. Dragon Mages at least.

Well, technically Dragon Mages who were ment to be fighty wizards should have had the option for armour in the last book... (just like Vampires should never have been forced to pay 20pts just to get heavy armour+shield!)

But I do agree that both of Ward's Fantasy books are rediculous...
Daemons are laughably horrific in their internal balancing - we may as well just throw everything Khorne & Tzeentch bar ambusing Flesh Hounds, Skillcannons & LoC out the window and be done with it!
The Reign of Comedy table is a double kick to the junk of the Daemon player and needed to be FAQ'd to even work as intended because Ward can't write proper fething english...
Daemonic Generals and BSB's can only ever effect 25% of the book's units! (but only Nurgle is really viable as a mono-god list)
Locus abilities overall are horrifically overcosted, and Herald themselves are the squishiest characters in the entire game bar a Nurgle Palanquin rider.
The way Daemonic Gifts work is beyond attrocious when you compare it to how well it was implimented in the 40k book... For example, not only am I forced to spend 500+ pts to put a decent Lv4 on the table, but now I only get a 16% chance to get cannonball protection?!

High Elves on the other have no real 'weak' choices. Everything for the most part is readily competitive and there's alot of hard choices to be made in list design. (a really good thing!) There's a couple OTT special characters for sure, and the BotWD is laughably undercosted and silly in it's effects.
But overall High Elves are in a really good standing right now, and will probably be right up there with Ogres & WoC in terms of their competitiveness.



It just feels like Ward didn't give a crap about Daemons and didn't want to actually be bothered with the project, while it's readily clear that he was highly enthused about the High Elves and has thus given them a very strong and vibrant book that can build almost themed list you could ever dream up.

Not my intention go too far OT but every unit in the DoC book has a 5++ by default so there is your cannonball protection for no extra points. The Heralds are actually not that squishy except the Tzeentch one but he is not meant to go into a bear knuckle fight.
Besides that I cant believe they really made the HE book as it is. But well, I am used to play against stupid lists so one more is for me not the problem but the impact on WHF as a whole is terrible.

 Gorbad wrote:

Not my intention go too far OT but every unit in the DoC book has a 5++ by default so there is your cannonball protection for no extra points. The Heralds are actually not that squishy except the Tzeentch one but he is not meant to go into a bear knuckle fight.
Besides that I cant believe they really made the HE book as it is. But well, I am used to play against stupid lists so one more is for me not the problem but the impact on WHF as a whole is terrible.

A 33% chance to protect your easily 500+pts General and only Lv4 caster, when everyone else at least gets access to a 15pts/4++ item?
Yeah, still looks like we're on the massive losing end of that one!

And now HE's can insult us even more by potentially building a 3++ onto their big gribblies...

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Gorbad wrote:

Not my intention go too far OT but every unit in the DoC book has a 5++ by default so there is your cannonball protection for no extra points. The Heralds are actually not that squishy except the Tzeentch one but he is not meant to go into a bear knuckle fight.
Besides that I cant believe they really made the HE book as it is. But well, I am used to play against stupid lists so one more is for me not the problem but the impact on WHF as a whole is terrible.

A 33% chance to protect your easily 500+pts General and only Lv4 caster, when everyone else at least gets access to a 15pts/4++ item?
Yeah, still looks like we're on the massive losing end of that one!

And now HE's can insult us even more by potentially building a 3++ onto their big gribblies...

Come on, that´s a one trick pony. I dont say our lvl4 is cheap and well protected but it´s not that bad. Could be better though plus the lack of BRB items is a bit GAK but well, all in all I like the new book and playstyle way more than the old one.

Don't overlook that those greater daemons have 5 or 6 wounds, that helps out quite a bit.
Also a daemon prince clocks in under 400 points as a level 4 wizard, which some daemon players seem to like to forget when they are crying about their daemon options.
For 75 points, daemons can drop a cannon ball stopping wall on the table during the game.
Finally, daemons get access to very durable monstrous beasts to screen cannons.

The list as a whole is fairly cannon survivable.

-Matt

 NELS1031 wrote:
I'm kind of annoyed that the High Elves got so many exclusive magic items.

I'm really happy about this. One of the things I loved about 7th edition books was the number of magic items available and all the awesome, unique combinations you could make. I'd thought that 8th had killed this but I'm glad to see, for the HE at least, I was wrong. There's lots of awesome combos still available. Get a large unit of spearmen (or something else) and give them the Banner of eternal flame then stick a character (BSB for example) in the unit with the Gem of Sunfire. Activate it and for one turn the entire unit gets +1 to wound! Remember everyone, you saw this tactic here first!

I do hope this magic item tradition continues though. But, that said, as long as DE keep the Sacrificial Dagger, I'm not too bothered

You can't give core a Magic banner anymore. We lost that option. You can give that Banner to a BSB Noble and then give the Gem to a mage.

I'm happy that Hero can now take a griffon mount. So I finally have a use for my IoB griffon lords. Now I can run both for just under 600 points.

 Sir Blayse wrote:
You can't give core a Magic banner anymore. We lost that option. You can give that Banner to a BSB Noble and then give the Gem to a mage.

I'm happy that Hero can now take a griffon mount. So I finally have a use for my IoB griffon lords. Now I can run both for just under 600 points.

Spears can still take a banner.

Read through the book yesterday, a few things that caught my eye: The shadow king character (Cannot remember his name ) has a bolt thrower bow that will be fired at BS7 and S7 with D3 wounds. I think this is actually really good, I think he clocked in at 250 points. He will be way more reliable than a BT at putting wounds on monsters.

I do think that drain magic is too good. Unless I am mistaken it can remove augment/ hex spells that are not remains in play. So effectively your opponent will only be getting one combat phase (in his turn) with his mindrazor or other buffs up. I think this is so far a very underestimated spell.

Petrocco wrote:
Read through the book yesterday, a few things that caught my eye: The shadow king character (Cannot remember his name ) has a bolt thrower bow that will be fired at BS7 and S7 with D3 wounds. I think this is actually really good, I think he clocked in at 250 points. He will be way more reliable than a BT at putting wounds on monsters.

I do think that drain magic is too good. Unless I am mistaken it can remove augment/ hex spells that are not remains in play. So effectively your opponent will only be getting one combat phase (in his turn) with his mindrazor or other buffs up. I think this is so far a very underestimated spell.

Alith Anar is pretty good, it's just a shame that Shadow Warriors aren't quite as good.

As for drain magic, whilst it is great in theory, spells like Mindrazor only need to be active for one phase to utterly wreck you. Does help against the spells being used as a deterrent though.

Does drain magic remove hex effects on High Elf units or all friendly units?

I believe so.

The spell is an Augment if cast on friendlies and a Hex if cast on enemies. It removes RiP and Hex/Augment spells on the target unit IIRC.

Cryda wrote:
Does drain magic remove hex effects on High Elf units or all friendly units?

You can target a single enemy or friendly unit within 18", the spell being a Hex or Augment respectively. All spells affecting that unit are removed. You can also boost the power of the spell to remove all spells on all units, both friend and foe, within 18".

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Sir Blayse wrote:
You can't give core a Magic banner anymore. We lost that option. You can give that Banner to a BSB Noble and then give the Gem to a mage.

I'm happy that Hero can now take a griffon mount. So I finally have a use for my IoB griffon lords. Now I can run both for just under 600 points.

Spears can still take a banner.

Sorry, I run Sea Guard instead of regular Spearmen. So I didn't notice they still had it. I find the Flame banner better when you can use it to shoot and to stab with though. 2

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Don't overlook that those greater daemons have 5 or 6 wounds, that helps out quite a bit.
The list as a whole is fairly cannon survivable.

I think it was you who was mentioning how even ward 4+ heroes were doomed from war machines. There's cannons and there's stone throwers. A few stone throwers will take out any GD. They get no LoS at all. It's a big deal.

I dont get why people are so set on cannons/shooting. ST´s are nasty for sure but I havent played a game/tournament with at least 5pieces of terrain on the field so shooting while nasty was never a game winner.

It probably has to do with how points are gained.

A greater daemon is easier to get points from than an equivalent amount of basic troops if you have access to cannons.

 Grey Templar wrote:
It probably has to do with how points are gained.

A greater daemon is easier to get points from than an equivalent amount of basic troops if you have access to cannons.

This.
It's simply annoying that we can no longer really protect our most important model, (General + Lv4 wizard), who's over 500pts which can simply be one-shoted with a lucky cannonball.
Hell, even the big fatboy can now be one-shoted since he lost 4 wounds from almost every single previous incarnation!

High Elves on the other hand now have an instant out on their big gribblies, especially the meanest one being the Frostheart who gets a basic 5++ that can then be improved upon!

Don't your greater daemons have invuln saves too? They should be at least as durable as the Phoenixes if not more.

That said I think all Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes should come with 4+ wards standard.

Yeah, the point is everything is tied into that one unit. A vampire can be bunkered and you can still have other casters. Same with a TK heirophant.

But you're only going to have one lvl 4 as doc. He is 100% likely to be your general. He has no look out sir. He can't join units. He's a large target.

Loss of TZ loremasters probably hurt 8th Doc the most.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Don't your greater daemons have invuln saves too? They should be at least as durable as the Phoenixes if not more.

That said I think all Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes should come with 4+ wards standard.

It´s 5++ for the whole army yes but as duke said, it´s a 400pts huge target (naked) with no access to BRB stuff except weapons. It´s not shabby but it can turn against you pretty hard. Again, I havent played a single WHF game since 4th without less than 5pieces of terrain so some cover/LoS block was accessable in all my games but >500 pts in one single model that can get LoS is pretty harsh. Time to get a lot DoC games under my belt now, I will meet HE in a few days and will give it a shot with DoC.

As a Daemons player, the new High Elves book makes me want to find a dark corner, assume the fetal position in said corner, and weep until my eyes fall out.

DukeRustfield wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Don't overlook that those greater daemons have 5 or 6 wounds, that helps out quite a bit.
The list as a whole is fairly cannon survivable.

I think it was you who was mentioning how even ward 4+ heroes were doomed from war machines. There's cannons and there's stone throwers. A few stone throwers will take out any GD. They get no LoS at all. It's a big deal.

No, I was the one that pointed out, between misfires, missing the target (~2" target), failing to wound, passing ward saves, and failing to do enough wounds, cannons aren't exceptional against smaller based monsters. 3 cannons for 1 solid hit is a good rule of thumb.
Stone throwers ignore the terrain and screening issues, but come down on target slightly less often.
IMO, ambushing flesh hounds and furies are a must.
If you do go up against a machine horde, the furies can make an initial run at them, and then if they fail (when they fail) the hounds coming in from behind take out the warmachines.
An army will be hard pressed to stop both. You might have to hide for 2 turns, but that leaves you 4 turns of warmachine free to do your thing.

-Matt

HE book is a big let down. Does any army need 3 different chariots in their special ?
There's a bunch of new characters that don't really do much differently ( I think the lore aster is cool, but the other ones are pretty worthless)
The big birds are cool, but really they are just dragons with ward saves.

I don't like the world dragon banner and I think the lore attribute is potentially broken = games that are no fun. It's way too easy to have several 3+ ward save units, characters, monsters.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
3 cannons for 1 solid hit is a good rule of thumb.

On average a cannon will hit and wound a GD.

This is your general in your Unstable army who all have LD 7 max, too. He's also your spellcaster. He's also a mega combat force. So you can't as easily shuttle him off to hide behind far-flung hills.

buckero0 wrote:
HE book is a big let down. Does any army need 3 different chariots in their special ?
There's a bunch of new characters that don't really do much differently ( I think the lore aster is cool, but the other ones are pretty worthless)
The big birds are cool, but really they are just dragons with ward saves.

I don't like the world dragon banner and I think the lore attribute is potentially broken = games that are no fun. It's way too easy to have several 3+ ward save units, characters, monsters.

The Anoited is godly actually. He comes with a built-in 4++ meaning his magic items alotment is open for plenty of other fun things AND he makes his entire unit ItP, and then just for kicks, gives his unit a 6++ was well. You can tool him up for well under 300pts if you want, meaning it's quite do-able to have him and a tooled-up Lv4 in 2400pts games.

Teclis is a rediculous force multiplier and buffer extrodinaire.

Alarielle is the end-all-be-all of being a total donkeycave to Daemon players when combo'd alongside a White Lion unit w/BotWD.

The Frostheart from what my buddy has told me needs an urgent FAQ, since apparently his own entry doesn't limit the -1S down to a minimum of 1 like the hex spells do... Thus you can run him into a unit, hex them down to S1 and come the combat phase, the Phoenix drops them to S0 and instantly explodes the entire unit!
(note: this is what a friend who has their book has been telling me...)
But if true, well, like I said; FAQ please or we've got some pretty rank cheddar here! That's quite a bit better than anything any 'ol dragon will ever acomplish.

DukeRustfield wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:
3 cannons for 1 solid hit is a good rule of thumb.

On average a cannon will hit and wound a GD.

This is your general in your Unstable army who all have LD 7 max, too. He's also your spellcaster. He's also a mega combat force. So you can't as easily shuttle him off to hide behind far-flung hills.

Daemons are not Unstable like Undead are. Losing our general will not force crumble tests.
Instead, Losing your Greater Deamon means you lose your only Lv4 wizard (unless you're playing like 3200pts or higher!), and of course, your General (who only gives his Inspiring Prescence to 25% of the book anyways! )

If you really wanted to make a point about Alarielle, I would be looking at the banner which having Alarielle unlocks.

Spells from the Lore of Light and the Lore of Life cast by a friendly wizard that target a unit containing the Battle Standard Bearer with the Standard of Avelorn (it can only be on the BSB apparently) gain a +4 bonus to cast.

The entry for the Frostheart Phoenix (in the print book at least) explicitly states in the "Blizzard Aura" entry:

Warhammer Armies: High Elves page 53 wrote: Any enemy unit in base contact with a Frostheart Phoenix has the Always Strikes Last special rule and suffers -1 to its Strength (to a minimum of 1).

DukeRustfield wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:
3 cannons for 1 solid hit is a good rule of thumb.

On average a cannon will hit and wound a GD.

This is your general in your Unstable army who all have LD 7 max, too. He's also your spellcaster. He's also a mega combat force. So you can't as easily shuttle him off to hide behind far-flung hills.

Average:
23 out of 36 shots produce a bounce that crosses a base that is more than 2" and less than 4" (ie, 50mm base at any angle). (6/36 shots misfire, 7 out of 36 fail to bounce far enough).
5 out of 6 successfully wound.
4 out of 6 bypass the ward save of a non-tzeench daemon.
Discounting terrain blocking bounces/LOS, or monstrous beasts stopping the ball, you have a 35.4% chance of getting past a daemons defense. Then you roll number of wounds.
So, like I said, if you want to count on 1 cannon getting through, it's best if you have 3.

To bring this back around to high elves, what's the best way for high elves to deal with hard monsters (like Chimeras, hydras and Abombs)?



-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
So, like I said, if you want to count on 1 cannon getting through, it's best if you have 3.

Assuming the cannons explode after round 1. You can put your army and cannons anywhere. Only 2 GD fly. If they run to get into combat to get they will leave their entire army and simply die.

Daemons are not Unstable like Undead are. Losing our general will not force crumble tests.
Instead, Losing your Greater Deamon means you lose your only Lv4 wizard (unless you're playing like 3200pts or higher!), and of course, your General (who only gives his Inspiring Prescence to 25% of the book anyways! )

I think people know what it means. Unstable is shorter than Daemonic Instability. Unstable doesn't force crumble tests, btw. That's a VC/TK thing. But it's a big deal. ~25% of your points, your general, your toughest champion (by far), highest caster/dispeller (by far), highest LD (by far). It's tough to see recovering from losing a GD within the first few turns.

There are several daemon players in my local meta I'm looking forward to using this army book on.
All the ones who, while trampling on all comers when the daemon book first came out, responded to all complaints with "suck it up and learn to play better"
What goes around, comes around.

If you were losing to 8th daemon book you indeed need to l2p cuz it's pretty sucky except for nurgle. It's certainly worse than previous edition.

If a newcomer to Warhammer were to read this thread, he'd be left with the impression that there are only two armies in the game.

 Flashman wrote:
If a newcomer to Warhammer were to read this thread, he'd be left with the impression that there are only two armies in the game.

Speaking of which, I think VC might have a hard time with HE.

 Tangent wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
If a newcomer to Warhammer were to read this thread, he'd be left with the impression that there are only two armies in the game.

Speaking of which, I think VC might have a hard time with HE.

VC have a hard time with anyone can shut down their magic. That's the big downfall of all Undead - without their magic, they're a combat army with overall weak units who rely on expensive characters & rares to generate kills.
However, most of their units also drop like flies in combat and with Unstable, it's much harder for them to support their fighty units with chaff because that chaff really does die in droves!

Experiment 626 wrote:

buckero0 wrote:
HE book is a big let down. Does any army need 3 different chariots in their special ?
There's a bunch of new characters that don't really do much differently ( I think the lore aster is cool, but the other ones are pretty worthless)
The big birds are cool, but really they are just dragons with ward saves.

I don't like the world dragon banner and I think the lore attribute is potentially broken = games that are no fun. It's way too easy to have several 3+ ward save units, characters, monsters.

The Anoited is godly actually. He comes with a built-in 4++ meaning his magic items alotment is open for plenty of other fun things AND he makes his entire unit ItP, and then just for kicks, gives his unit a 6++ was well. You can tool him up for well under 300pts if you want, meaning it's quite do-able to have him and a tooled-up Lv4 in 2400pts games.

Teclis is a rediculous force multiplier and buffer extrodinaire.

Alarielle is the end-all-be-all of being a total donkeycave to Daemon players when combo'd alongside a White Lion unit w/BotWD.

The Frostheart from what my buddy has told me needs an urgent FAQ, since apparently his own entry doesn't limit the -1S down to a minimum of 1 like the hex spells do... Thus you can run him into a unit, hex them down to S1 and come the combat phase, the Phoenix drops them to S0 and instantly explodes the entire unit!
(note: this is what a friend who has their book has been telling me...)
But if true, well, like I said; FAQ please or we've got some pretty rank cheddar here! That's quite a bit better than anything any 'ol dragon will ever acomplish.
)

I generally don't even look at the special characters because they're usually terrible or overpowered/undercosted.

I forgot aobout the annointed. There are good things in the book but like I said who needs an army full of 3+ ward saves? Especially when there are so many other books that need an update. and can't deal with most armies.

as for there only being 2 armies in the game . . .

we have a hard time getting new players to play fantasy as it is. I've got two friends that play regularly. Both play HE. two others play Ogres and VC but aren't around very often. The VC player also plays HE and doesn't really play VC much (Ive only seen him complain about them, not play them)
We have some new players that play O&G and dwarves - the dwarf player gets hurt every time he plays no matter what list he plays. Everyone else is too sporadic and plays too infrequently.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Tangent wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
If a newcomer to Warhammer were to read this thread, he'd be left with the impression that there are only two armies in the game.

Speaking of which, I think VC might have a hard time with HE.

VC have a hard time with anyone can shut down their magic. That's the big downfall of all Undead - without their magic, they're a combat army with overall weak units who rely on expensive characters & rares to generate kills.
However, most of their units also drop like flies in combat and with Unstable, it's much harder for them to support their fighty units with chaff because that chaff really does die in droves!

I guess I was more referring to the Banner shutting down Vampires with magic weapons, plus decent shooting to remove our chaff, plus better casters, plus having high leadership which makes them less susceptible to screaming...

 Tangent wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Tangent wrote:

 Flashman wrote:
If a newcomer to Warhammer were to read this thread, he'd be left with the impression that there are only two armies in the game.

Speaking of which, I think VC might have a hard time with HE.

VC have a hard time with anyone can shut down their magic. That's the big downfall of all Undead - without their magic, they're a combat army with overall weak units who rely on expensive characters & rares to generate kills.
However, most of their units also drop like flies in combat and with Unstable, it's much harder for them to support their fighty units with chaff because that chaff really does die in droves!

I guess I was more referring to the Banner shutting down Vampires with magic weapons, plus decent shooting to remove our chaff, plus better casters, plus having high leadership which makes them less susceptible to screaming...

Actually, it's the same problem we've always had. White Lions are stupidly good. Hopefully with more new toys, we see less white lions.
If you run a lower magic vampire list that is more focused on specials and rare beat-sticks, it should still do fine against elves.
I'll still be running a coven throne vs high elves, it tends to do pretty well.
I'll still be running spirit hosts against high elves, because I want to force you to use that S4 magical flaming armor piercing shots on my skirmishing ethereals.

Good points. But I mean, does anyone run vampires without magic weapons? I know I don't.

As for the Coven Throne, why does it do well against Elves? They have high leadership against Battle of Wills, and aren't the attacks of the spirit horde magical (and so are screwed by the banner)?

I'll say it again: not every unit in the HE book has the banner. The Coven Throne probably does pretty well against all but the single unit that does have the banner. And the Elves' Ld isn't as good as it appears. Most of the time, we aren't going to be taking a Ld 10 General.

Damn. Then they will be a horrible LD8 and 9, with Valour of Ages and magic banners on every unit that wants it.

Pathetic.

Pheonix Guard auto have 2++ against magic though? Of course this was "costed"
/derision off
Potentially a lot of the armycare v hard to kill. T3 doesn't seem that likely to matter.

 The Shadow wrote:
I'll say it again: not every unit in the HE book has the banner. The Coven Throne probably does pretty well against all but the single unit that does have the banner. And the Elves' Ld isn't as good as it appears. Most of the time, we aren't going to be taking a Ld 10 General.

The battle of wills isn't magical hits.
If you're general is Ld9, and mine is Ld10, and I give -1 Ld, I start up by 2 in the contest.
That's a ~9% chance that your unit swings on it's self and doesn't attack in melee at all for the round.
Most likely, the high elves are going to be re-rolling successful hits, but a 9% chance of a unit killing itself every round it attacks is pretty good.

If I can get doom and darkness, the Ld drop boosts the kill yourself result to ~41%.

Kicking around the idea of running manfred, since his double lore master will give me doom and darkness, and still let him be general.

-Matt

I like the new book. There I said it. The banner that everyone complains about will be a crutch that isnt quite as useful as a Skaven Storm Banner. One army and a couple units might be affected game wide, while the skaven banner had the ability to shut down multiple entire armies that relied of shooting or flyers. Sorry daemons, you are on your own. In the army list I am using I only have a standard BSB with a magic bow to shore up my archer blocks on my back line.

I really like the set up of the book. For the first time ever, I was able to build an army the way I had planned befoe release(2 eagles in one rare slot? Yes please, may I have another?). Effectively this book lets you easily build a themed list from any of the nations. You might not get your specialists as core but you get them and since every nation has archers at a minimum there you go. Aside from the dreaded Banner or Daemon Pants Changing, the items are pretty decent and decently priced. I havent really looked at magic, its my least favorite part of the game, so i built in a defensive mage and will figure otu what to give him later.

The fluff was ok. One part although minor kind of bugged me, the part where the HEs dont really need to trade since they have more enchanted weapons in their armories than they have troops to use them. Sooooo why not issue those weapons instead of sending troops out to fight daemons and undead without them? Duh!

Oh and as for someone writing a few pages back that GK were the hard counter to the daemon army... well they are GK. They are supposed to be the daemons worst nightmare. But to counter their daemon stomping ways, they are supposed to be only so-so vs everyone else since they are only used against daemons by the Imperium. But Ward came and changed that a bit......

I wonder if you couldn't field a gunline-ish army right now. Their archers are extremely effective and both Skaven and Dark Elves are FoD armies. Add in the joke of the new lore and you could have a very effective shooting phase, you just lack template-ish stuff...enter Phoenix. Might be interesting.

 Sigvatr wrote:
I wonder if you couldn't field a gunline-ish army right now. Their archers are extremely effective and both Skaven and Dark Elves are FoD armies. Add in the joke of the new lore and you could have a very effective shooting phase, you just lack template-ish stuff...enter Phoenix. Might be interesting.

BF 5 one turn 6 with effective S4 magic weapons shot from 3+ ranks is pretty damn nasty. Bolt throwers to spice things up and the new bolt thrower on the chariot to come from the flank. It´s "just" S5 but it is a "flying bolt thrower" and S5 should be enough against a lot of core troops.

 Tangent wrote:
Good points. But I mean, does anyone run vampires without magic weapons? I know I don't.

As for the Coven Throne, why does it do well against Elves? They have high leadership against Battle of Wills, and aren't the attacks of the spirit horde magical (and so are screwed by the banner)?

I've been running no magic weapon vampire for awhile. Why? Because the Tricksters helm and Talisman of Preservation take up 95 of my 100 points, and I'd rather have a lance than a 5 point magic weapon.
The only thing that I'd want magic against is ethereals. What's ethereal these days? Slaan, and other vampire armies.
I have more than enough static combat res to kill enemy ethereals.

The throne does well against elves, because you can use inspiring presence and Aura of Dark Majesty.
That means that I'm leadership 10, and you're -1 leadership. Since it looks like most high elf armies are not including an Ld10 character, and most are sticking the Ld9 general in a unit with the Banner of of the Broken Dragon, you're inspiring presence is 9 (no banner of discipline). I'm starting the contest up by 2. This makes it work better here than vs say, Orcs, who tend to put the Ld9 warboss in a unit with the banner for Ld10 (so the aura leaves me up 1 point).

The spirit horde gives ethereal movement and the 2D6 S3 attacks are magical. The other 8 S5 attacks are not magical (4 from the vampire, 2 from each of the handmaidens). The handmaidens also have WS5 and ASF, so you don't get re-rolls against the throne.

Fear-bombing may also be a good exploit vs lists I've been seeing so far.

It's not that you want magical attacks, it's that you want magic weapons. The fact that they grant magical attacks is irrelevant if I'm buying it for the +2 strength.

As for the lances, I was running my Vamire Lord with a lance for quite awhile, but kept finding myself in these grinding combats that just got worse after the first round because I'd lose the lance. So I changed my build to include the Ogre Blade and, more recently, the Sword of Anti-Heroes.

This is off-topic, but I've got another question so I'm gonna PM you.

65 archers and 40 maidenguard and then another 40 shadow wawrriors plus a couple of lvl4s or loremaster makes the best shooting in the game and they still fight well in 3-4ranks horded up.

you can also get 3+wards for the majority of your army and characters with little effort.

buckero0 wrote:
65 archers and 40 maidenguard and then another 40 shadow wawrriors plus a couple of lvl4s or loremaster makes the best shooting in the game and they still fight well in 3-4ranks horded up.

you can also get 3+wards for the majority of your army and characters with little effort.

Seaguard is nice too. Shoot them --> stand&shoot them --> welcome to my wall of spears.

buckero0 wrote:
65 archers and 40 maidenguard and then another 40 shadow wawrriors plus a couple of lvl4s or loremaster makes the best shooting in the game and they still fight well in 3-4ranks horded up.

you can also get 3+wards for the majority of your army and characters with little effort.

RBT > Maidenguard. 6 shots S4 and AP vs all targets, with twice the range. All for the cost of 5 magic bows.
Plus the option for a S6 no save shot, should you get something lined up on a flank.

-Matt


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Can't catch me:
Elite infantry (lions or swordmasters) with banner of swiftness.
Then cast Hand of Glory (+D3 to movement, initiative, weapon skill and ballistic skill). You've got a unit that has a move of 7 to 9 inches, with a weapon skill of 7 to 9.
The cast walk between worlds for the 20" movement.

This is crazy fast for infantry.
Turn 1, you're 12" ahead after movement, then another 20" ignoring terrain. Turn 2 you're making a 15" charge on average. Put in a Sea Helm into the unit, and you can expose a flank on the way in if you need to.

What's more, the high magic lore attribute will make the 6+ ward vs shooting even better.

It's a death star on speed.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

RBT > Maidenguard. 6 shots S4 and AP vs all targets, with twice the range. All for the cost of 5 magic bows.
Plus the option for a S6 no save shot, should you get something lined up on a flank.

The Sisters can be joined by a Handmaiden who give them quick to fire, which is pretty neat. Also, the sisters are more "durable" in CC (more bodies) and possibly even vs shooting, but I can't be bothered doing the maths for that one.

 The Shadow wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:

RBT > Maidenguard. 6 shots S4 and AP vs all targets, with twice the range. All for the cost of 5 magic bows.
Plus the option for a S6 no save shot, should you get something lined up on a flank.

The Sisters can be joined by a Handmaiden who give them quick to fire, which is pretty neat. Also, the sisters are more "durable" in CC (more bodies) and possibly even vs shooting, but I can't be bothered doing the maths for that one.

5 t3 wound is not more durable than 2 T7 wounds.
Sisters losing firepower as the unit takes wounds. Bolt throwers don't.

I wouldn't really call either durable. I guess you can say the sisters are less fragile, but neither holds up to anything significant.
You could do a sister death star and beef up a ward save with lots of high casting. But, it's a shooting death star, not a melee one. You won't slaughter anything in combat, you just might be able to hold for awhile.

-Matt

 Sigvatr wrote:
Nah, that's not true. All other 8th army books are really well-written. It's just Mat Ward being an a-hole and stuff.

He's just doing his job and GW are evidently very happy with the way he goes about things. This book will no doubt sell well and boost the sale of HE models, so it justifies his wage.

I didn't doubt that it will sell well or sth. Just saying that Mat Ward is to rules writing what James Cameron is to quality scripts.

 The Shadow wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:

RBT > Maidenguard. 6 shots S4 and AP vs all targets, with twice the range. All for the cost of 5 magic bows.
Plus the option for a S6 no save shot, should you get something lined up on a flank.

The Sisters can be joined by a Handmaiden who give them quick to fire, which is pretty neat. Also, the sisters are more "durable" in CC (more bodies) and possibly even vs shooting, but I can't be bothered doing the maths for that one.

Only glanced at in the shop but I thought it read that ALL Sisters and Handmaidens have Quick to Fire - not that the HM grants it?

 Sigvatr wrote:
I didn't doubt that it will sell well or sth. Just saying that Mat Ward is to rules writing what James Cameron is to quality scripts.

James Cameron wrote Aliens and Terminator. I'd say thats enough quality.

Aw crap, I meant Michael Bay. Sorry.

His rules are on Uwe Boll level, but he turns his turd into a shiny turd by having LOOK IT'S GOOD stuff in it just like Bay uses LOOK BIG EXPLOSIONS to cover up the mess he makes.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:

RBT > Maidenguard. 6 shots S4 and AP vs all targets, with twice the range. All for the cost of 5 magic bows.
Plus the option for a S6 no save shot, should you get something lined up on a flank.

The Sisters can be joined by a Handmaiden who give them quick to fire, which is pretty neat. Also, the sisters are more "durable" in CC (more bodies) and possibly even vs shooting, but I can't be bothered doing the maths for that one.

Only glanced at in the shop but I thought it read that ALL Sisters and Handmaidens have Quick to Fire - not that the HM grants it?

Handmaiden gives them quick to fire.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Aw crap, I meant Michael Bay. Sorry.

His rules are on Uwe Boll level, but he turns his turd into a shiny turd by having LOOK IT'S GOOD stuff in it just like Bay uses LOOK BIG EXPLOSIONS to cover up the mess he makes.

Michael Bay isn't a scriptwriter.

If Matt Ward really did such a bad job, GW would have shown him the door by now.

Can we close this thread so we don't need to wade through pages of rumours to get to the current info.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Aw crap, I meant Michael Bay. Sorry.

His rules are on Uwe Boll level, but he turns his turd into a shiny turd by having LOOK IT'S GOOD stuff in it just like Bay uses LOOK BIG EXPLOSIONS to cover up the mess he makes.

Please, nothing has ever made my poor ears bleed while simultaneously laughing half-to-death as the infamous, "Oh Anikan, you're breaking my heart!"
I mean, who does that to Natalie Portman?!!

What you're looking for is Ward = George Lucas.


Overall I'd say High Elves are right up there with Ogres in terms of their overall capabilities, but they'll have more lists available to them...

I know HE players keep insisting that army-wide T3 is a huge weakness, but in all actuality, it's only a glaring issue on their characters. T3 is average toughness in Fantasy, unlike in 40K where T3 is a true weakness!

Fenrir Kitsune wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Aw crap, I meant Michael Bay. Sorry.

His rules are on Uwe Boll level, but he turns his turd into a shiny turd by having LOOK IT'S GOOD stuff in it just like Bay uses LOOK BIG EXPLOSIONS to cover up the mess he makes.

Michael Bay isn't a scriptwriter.

If Matt Ward really did such a bad job, GW would have shown him the door by now.

Perspective.

GW said they do not care for balance and for comp play. They want to sell stuff. How do you do that? Pump out overpowered crap. Enter Mat Ward.

Mat Ward is good for GW, but terrible for players.

At first I didn't think the Loremaster was worth taking but with a new list i have been working on for an upcoming tournament I am going to bring him.

I plan on doing this.

Loremaster
Book of Hoeth
Armor of Fortune
Cloak of the beards ( unless I can find another 10 point item)

 pities2004 wrote:
At first I didn't think the Loremaster was worth taking but with a new list i have been working on for an upcoming tournament I am going to bring him.

I plan on doing this.

Loremaster
Book of Hoeth
Armor of Fortune
Cloak of the beards ( unless I can find another 10 point item)

I generally think the Book of Hoeth is wasted on the Loremaster or, rather, it would be better on a Level 4. The loremaster's spells are all low casting (unless you boost them, I guess) and, although it's nice to get some one dice casts off, I really think the Book of Hoeth is better on a Level 4. The Level 4 can quite safely chuck less dice into a powerful spell that he would normally, forcing your opponent to let it through, or use more dice to dispel than you did to cast opening himself up more for your other spells.

And if you want a cheap Ward Save on the Loremaster, give him Shield of the Merwyrm and the Sword of Might. You lose a point of strength but gain ASF (so re-rolls to hit most probably) as well as gaining a 4+ ward for 35 points!

The Shield of the Merwyrm is rapidly becoming my second favourite magic item. And, no, my favourite is not the BotWD.

Well my plan was to put the loremaster in a unit of 39 PG and with high magic increase the ward.

I still have some tinkering to do. May switch to shield and drop the book

 pities2004 wrote:
At first I didn't think the Loremaster was worth taking but with a new list i have been working on for an upcoming tournament I am going to bring him.

I plan on doing this.

Loremaster
Book of Hoeth
Armor of Fortune
Cloak of the beards ( unless I can find another 10 point item)

Don't buy armor of fortune you pay 5 points for nothing ehen you could take the talisman of endurance instead. Hint: You have Heavy Armor to start why pay for it again.

 captain collius wrote:

 pities2004 wrote:
At first I didn't think the Loremaster was worth taking but with a new list i have been working on for an upcoming tournament I am going to bring him.

I plan on doing this.

Loremaster
Book of Hoeth
Armor of Fortune
Cloak of the beards ( unless I can find another 10 point item)

Don't buy armor of fortune you pay 5 points for nothing ehen you could take the talisman of endurance instead. Hint: You have Heavy Armor to start why pay for it again.

Yeah i'll do that, thanks

I don't like how they basically seemed to drop Old Ones from the lore. Everything is about the HE gods now. Which kind of muddles things for me. If HE were creator gods and around since the dawn of time, etc, how did the Old Ones create the HE? They just make it seem like the Old Ones were some Silver Surfer aliens who accidentally blew up the planet doing some surfing trick but weren't really more than that.

They have kind of an out in that they go, "we didn't keep track of history before this." What? You're all nearly immortal but because you didn't keep desktop calendars you forgot everything? Unlike other races they'd know a lot about their primordial past. Cuz you'd have great great great great great great great great grandfathers still alive.

We'll see what happens with the Lizardman book.

Couldn't the Old Ones be the High Elf gods, just by a different name?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Couldn't the Old Ones be the High Elf gods, just by a different name?

That's my theory but only the Slann would actually know.

As long as greenskins can still claim that they are the oldest race, I'm fine with the fluff

I think the gods keep answering, though, right? That whole Phoenix King stuff. That was after the sundering and the Old Ones took off. They also make it (fuzzy) that the gods can still walk the earth. Though rare. And a sword of Khaine seems like an odd thing for Old Ones to leave around. Maybe it was their toothpick or something?

There's that skink priest who gets a ward save because of his prayers to sotek. Which makes it POSSIBLE Old Ones are still doing Old Stuff.

Aren't the Old Ones dead? Exterminated by the Necrons / C'Tan?

Aren't 40k fluff and fantasy fluff totally seperate? I know years and years ago they said they were on a planet in the eye of the storm or something.

Possible that some old ones are still around and are gods. I mean look at sigmar, he became a god, so many the old ones did something special for him.

40K fluff doesn't tie with WHFB anymore. Severed years ago. Because maintaining the link hamstrung both sides.

No one knows what happened to the Old Ones. They mighta just blown up their gates, went, DOH, then left before anyone could blame them.

 Sigvatr wrote:
As long as greenskins can still claim that they are the oldest race, I'm fine with the fluff

They don't care what anyone else thinks anyway.

DukeRustfield wrote:
40K fluff doesn't tie with WHFB anymore. Severed years ago. Because maintaining the link hamstrung both sides.

No one knows what happened to the Old Ones. They mighta just blown up their gates, went, DOH, then left before anyone could blame them.

Meh, so unless we get an explanation, I guess I stick with them being tied.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Couldn't the Old Ones be the High Elf gods, just by a different name?

Unlikely. In the lizardmen book their is fluff about the high elves coming to visit. They enter the temple city and wait for the slaan to walk up. It takes a while, but the slaan divines that "They don't Belong Here", and the Temple Guard promptly start slaughtering the High Elves.

If the Slaan and High elves worshiped the same gods under different names, it's very unlikely that the gods would want the high elves slaughtered.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Couldn't the Old Ones be the High Elf gods, just by a different name?

Unlikely. In the lizardmen book their is fluff about the high elves coming to visit. They enter the temple city and wait for the slaan to walk up. It takes a while, but the slaan divines that "They don't Belong Here", and the Temple Guard promptly start slaughtering the High Elves.

If the Slaan and High elves worshiped the same gods under different names, it's very unlikely that the gods would want the high elves slaughtered.

-Matt

Could easily be explained with the Old Ones not wanting Elves to interfer with their overall scheme, which is what the Slaan are working on.

Or Slann could be big con artists. Living like pimps and getting high in their celestial rooms of awesome (drug rooms).

But it stated the Old ones created all the elder races. Like HE, Liz, Dwarfs, Ogres, Men. I think halflings too. Dragons and Dragon ogres were already here. This was in the lore section of the book so was presented as fact.

Just read the background section of the HE Book and have noticed something else fantastic about the new book: The photo-bombing Swordmaster on page 23!!

Mat Ward is the new god of the High Elf players, they can now argue their book is balanced and then conclude they are the most excellent of tacticians.

In the 5th edition LM book it says that the old ones nurtured the ancestors of the elves. Of course ancestor could mean some lower life form much like small tree dwelling primates are the ancestors of RL humans. The same is more or less repeated in the current book and these ancestors are described as primitive.

Interestingly the narrative suggests that saurus were made before the slann to purge the unwanted races, I had previously overlooked that.

Whether the old ones left or were destroyed is stated as unknown.

Matt Ward is their King until his nemesis, Tam Draw, decides that Wood Elves should have weapons that bypass ward saves and are double strength against elves, in order to counter this book - escalation ftw

Who the heck is Tam Draw?

Mat(t) Ward's opposite, obviously.