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 Sigvatr wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
DoC, maybe they should try redirecting for a change?

*gets popcorn*

Hope I didnt start a rage fest with that, dont know DoC that well so will have to see!

It's been discussed a lot, heated nevertheless, but in short: DoC can't chaff / redirect HE.

 gmaleron wrote:

--The banner of the world dragon deathstar. I have heard nothing but crying from other players saying how it is OP and should never have been created. Have faced the new HE's twice and handled it just fine. When playing as HE I just redirected his scary horde of white lions with eagles and shot them to pieces with bolt throwers. Many people seem to forget that the old banner of the world dragon was just as nasty (no magic @ all could affect the unit making spells like dwellers for example useless). and really this banner affects units with CC magical attacks the most, hence Wood Elves forest spirits and DoC, maybe they should try redirecting for a change?

Not all armies have super cheap & effective chaff like eagles or M9/10 Fast Cav... That alone makes the banner much more difficult for some armies to deal with than others.
People are not up in arms crying, "OMG! Skill Banner just broke Warhammer!11!!!!1!". Instead, the outcry is because up until now, there has not been a single item that is so obviously undercosted and with such massive effects as the BotWD;
- VC, Skaven & Dwarf shooting may as well not exist since most/all of it is magical in nature.
- WE's combat units are auto-hard countered since almost all of them that can fight by default have Magical Attacks.
- DoC is entirely fethed unless the HE player decides not to be a giant d-bag.
- The unit carrying the banner is almost immune to miscast damage. (only 2 results are 'bad' for the wizard bunkered in the unit)
- Combat characters which are already an endangered species in the game, are now even more irrelevant since 99% of them rely on magic weapons to do damage.
- No one else gets an outright 2++ save beyond a one use only type item/ability.

That's a helluva lot of positives for what is a cheap item that cannot be sniped. Yes it's beatable, (well, unless you're Daemons at which point your time is better spent looking for a new opponent...), that doesn't mean it's fine & balanced and we shouldn't be pissed that GW let this slip through!
Items like this are what begin the inevitable arms race that ruined 7th ed. What's even more galling is that fact that it's from the author who's infamous for promoting the rock/paper/scissors style of rules writing that the majority of the community hates so much!

 gmaleron wrote:
-The phoenixes are very good as well but they are not invincible. It is a dice game so guess what bad rolls will happen for winds of magic. In regards to the Frost phoenix its -1 strength debuff is good, however it has to be in base contact. Compare that to an Empire Celestial Hurricanium that can be withing a few inches of multiple units and can give them all a buff could be listed as ridiculous as well in regards to some of your guys arguments.

The Frostheart is still an auto-include for the simple fact it removes or else compensates what is supposed to be the Elves main weakness. Most things in the game are S5 or lower. The -1S means that the unit fighting alongside the Frostheart is now effectively +1T and will be wounded more often on 3's or 4' instead of 2's or 3's.

For an army that hates getting punched back, that's a game winner right there.
And they're cheap enough that it's not that hard for a HE player to pack a pair of them, meaning they can support 2 combats at once, or else until an FAQ gives us a definite answer, you can knock an enemy deathstar by -2S!

 gmaleron wrote:
And Experiment626, not to pick on you but out of all the books you mentioned showing how the new HE's are better you mentioned both the Wood Elves and the Brets which are both the oldest books currently out there right now which kind of makes your points null and void in regards to those armies. When all the books come out (guessing with the new edition) the roles could very well be reversed.

Overall yes the new book has some great units, flexibility (dont see how a book being flexible is unfair) and has some cool tricks. However I do believe that things will develop in the meta that will effectively counter what the new HE's can bring, wait a few months and if it does turn out that way then you can point it out to your hearts content.

It's not so much that WE's & Brets are so far behind that the new High Elf buffs are irrelevant, but rather that Ward has a history of playing the 'one-up game' with his books and treading all over another army's supposed niche...

Brets for example are supposed to be 'the cavalry army'. Even when they do eventually get re-done & updated, I highly doubt they're suddenly going to be gaining M9 heavy cav which fights with ASF and an additional rank... (hopefully they make the Lance Formation a bit better and/or add Devastating Charge to it!)
Silverhelms make KotR look like complete chumps, even if you assume that the KotR are say 4-5pts too expensive now per model, the Silverhealms still rape them by virtue of just being elves. Now they effectively get a better version of the current Lance Formation and unless the local HE players have been fibbing, they also get faster movement too!

He did the same when it came to his BA's vs Vanilla Marines. Not only did BA's get Assault Squads in the Troops section, (nothing wrong about that on it's own), but for some silly reason, BA's then got Meltagun options, (thus making Vanilla Assault squad look pitiful and making Tactical squads utterly pointless), AND access to cheaper & better Transports as well...

Ward's style just tends to smack overall of his stuff having to always be the better than most/all of the other kids' stuff. It's simply annoying and flipping the bird to armies that are already fethed enough as it is, without now also being one-up'ed in the one area they're supposedly 'the best/better' at than everyone else.

Since i started the thread i thought i'd throw out what i've done to test out the HE power level.

I did a sample game vs a HE army at 2800 pts. My list isn't a dual slann super magic list but my opponents list wasn't ultra competitive either.

My experience from one game so far (i know one game is meaningless) is this: I think HE are equal to lizardmen in power.

Lizardmen magic is stronger (was there ever a doubt?).

The HE core units and lizardmen units are about equal point for point. The lizardmen have the toughness to survive and actually swing back.

The HE monsters (Phoenix's) are stronger than the lizardmen stegadons but only just slightly. Stegs shoot and get impact hits. Phoenix fly, get randomly stronger, get more attacks and have better effects. Phoenix are also just as tough of stegadons (really GW? a bird is as tough as a big fat scaly lizard?)

HE have better infantry choices, enough so to make up for their lack of magic dominance.

Lizardmen standard lords and heroes wipe the floor with HE lords and heroes and most HE in general.

Shooting is probably a draw. HE have way more of it but lizardmen have poison and better scouts.

JWhex wrote:

Why should I retype what is in the early posts in this thread as to what makes the HE army a top tier army?

Not all debates are worth pursuing. I wont debate the theory of natural selection, theories speciation or the age of the Grand Canyon with a fundamentalist Christian that believes in a strict literal interpretation of the King James Bible. Whether or not army books can be evaluated from reading them is likewise not an interesting topic to me to debate over.

You're dodging the question. Again.

First off, for someone trying to tell someone off for not knowing about the scientific process, you sure use a lot of absolutes, what with the whole "no one who disagrees with me is worth the time" vibe you've got running.

Secondly, you STILL haven't provided any reasoning beside "because I say so". You're still responding with variations of "can't be bothered", despite being called out on it.

Just look at Experiment626. I don't agree with everything he says, but at least he's actually contributing to the discussion and backing up the claims being made with something other than "because I say so, and you're implicitly an inferior player if you disagree". You know the saying; put up or...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

JWhex wrote:

Why should I retype what is in the early posts in this thread as to what makes the HE army a top tier army?

Not all debates are worth pursuing. I wont debate the theory of natural selection, theories speciation or the age of the Grand Canyon with a fundamentalist Christian that believes in a strict literal interpretation of the King James Bible. Whether or not army books can be evaluated from reading them is likewise not an interesting topic to me to debate over.

You're dodging the question. Again.

First off, for someone trying to tell someone off for not knowing about the scientific process, you sure use a lot of absolutes, what with the whole "no one who disagrees with me is worth the time" vibe you've got running.

Secondly, you STILL haven't provided any reasoning beside "because I say so". You're still responding with variations of "can't be bothered", despite being called out on it.

Just look at Experiment626. I don't agree with everything she says, but at least she's actually contributing to the discussion and backing up the claims being made with something other than "because I say so, and you're implicitly an inferior player if you disagree". You know the saying; put up or...

Fixed that last bit for you!

Sorry about that, I'll make sure to remember. I actually caught myself wondering if I didn't know you were a she, but since I was unsure I defaulted to "he".

Good points Experiment and will admit that my ignorance with the DoC book is not helping . However do not DoC still have a very strong magic phase? My buddy who has DoC and runs them very well (he won Fantasy Ard Boyz one of the last times they ran it for the western region so he knows his stuff) says he plans to spam hexes and debuffs since they still work on the unit like crazy and utilize "speedbump" units to basically create a wiffleball matchup while he cleans up the rest of his army. Seems like a pretty legit strategy to me and just an example that yes the banner is good but there are ways to counter it.

 gmaleron wrote:
Good points Experiment and will admit that my ignorance with the DoC book is not helping . However do not DoC still have a very strong magic phase? My buddy who has DoC and runs them very well (he won Fantasy Ard Boyz one of the last times they ran it for the western region so he knows his stuff) says he plans to spam hexes and debuffs since they still work on the unit like crazy and utilize "speedbump" units to basically create a wiffleball matchup while he cleans up the rest of his army. Seems like a pretty legit strategy to me and just an example that yes the banner is good but there are ways to counter it.

Our magic phase got worse overall;
- Heralds going up in pts overall
- No more Loremaster makes Tzeentch a sad-sad panda
- Still cannot legally take a Lv4 unless you're playing at least 1600pts game! (at which point you get a bare naked Daemon Prince with only enough pts left to get a single gift! )
- No more access to abilities like Miscast protection, or +1PD, or even a fing Dispel Scroll!!! (I'm really pissed at this - why are we the only army with such a crippling disadvantage?)

Nurgle & Slaanesh magic is still scary though, thanks to all the buffs/hexes available, plus they can instead access Death & Shadow lores making them very versatile.

Tzeentch got eye-raped, bent over backwards and then ruthlessly sodomised however! The God of bloody Magic has the worst lore in the game, and can only access Metal to make up for it...

And yes, speed bumps like solo Beasts of Nurgle or small units of MSU Core can work, except vs a pure points-denial style BotWD elf army... At that point, there's just too much locked away under the banner and Daemons are then relying purely on magic-nuking the elves to kingdom come! (hence, the griping, because 'fun games' vs HE's will now come down to ;is the HE player going to be a giant donkeycave today or not?')


Of course, guess what mono-God army I have?!
'Tis going to be a very painful 4-5 years for all of us loyal Tzeentchian devotees... Hopefully the rumors prove true that 9th either allows allies and/or resets the whole system with a new Ravening Hordes style release and buries this horrific & sad excuse of an army book.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Sorry about that, I'll make sure to remember. I actually caught myself wondering if I didn't know you were a she, but since I was unsure I defaulted to "he".

Tee-he! No worries! I just like pointing it out since it seems girls are so damn rare in this hobby, we might as well make ourselves known.

 gmaleron wrote:
DoC, maybe they should try redirecting for a change?

Tactical knowledge = 0

Girls in warhammer? Playing tzeentch?

The hell you say?

lol

Pretty much though yes . I play mono-nurgle. There are a few tricks we have but it really comes down to how nice the elf player wants to be, which is a horrible way to go into a game hoping your opponent is being nice.

Nobody really wants games like that.

JWhex wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
DoC, maybe they should try redirecting for a change?

Tactical knowledge = 0

You might want to rephrase that as "DoC knowledge = 0", as redirecting such a unit would be the go-to option of most of the armies in the game.

On a different note, your own skill in redirecting and dodging stuff seems to be growing by the minute.

JWhex wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
DoC, maybe they should try redirecting for a change?

Tactical knowledge = 0

You know what how about you explain your point rather than relying on sitting in the corner like a five year old whining.

 captain collius wrote:

JWhex wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
DoC, maybe they should try redirecting for a change?

Tactical knowledge = 0

You know what how about you explain your point rather than relying on sitting in the corner like a five year old whining.

They have been over in "High Elves recieve a crutch."

It's become a sore spot for DoC when people don't know a thing about them.

Experiment 626 wrote:

People are not up in arms crying, "OMG! Skill Banner just broke Warhammer!11!!!!1!"

Well, in fact, this is actually a very accurate description of the general reaction

 The Shadow wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

People are not up in arms crying, "OMG! Skill Banner just broke Warhammer!11!!!!1!"

Well, in fact, this is actually a very accurate description of the general reaction

Well, for Daemon players it is pretty true at least...

Overall though, the majority of the outcry is simply that this item is;
a) beyond undercosted for its abilities, which are useful against every army in the game.
b) hard-counters one entire army and most of a second.

I mean, if say Dark Elves were to get a 50pts banner that let's them give a 2++ save against all spell damage & attacks made with the Martial Prowess rule, would you be fine with that? (because that's effectively what Daemon players and to a solid extent, Wood Elf players are now dealing with...)

The design of the item is laughably unbalanced and smells highly of potentially beginning a new arms race. Something I think most/all of us are sick and tired of after the last hellish edition of non-stop shinanigans.

I admit to not knowing much about the Banner of the World Dragon other than that it apparantly gives a single unit a 2++ ward against all magic damage. Is that right?

I think that is an item that should never have been pointed so that it could be used by a unit standard bearer. I mean, Ogres have the Rune Maw which redirects enemy spells cast on the unit on a 2+ (and does nothing to stop magic attacks in combat unlike BOTWD) and that is 60 points (meaning that only an Ogre BSB can carry it).

I have no problem with what I have heard about BOTWD except for the fact that it can be carried in a unit and not sniped out unlike a BSB.

The worst part of it seems to me though that it has been designed to counter certain armies while doing next to nothing to others. If I was to run into a unit with this banner with my Ogres, I would probably shrug, cast buff spells on my own units and then proceed to slam them into the unit and grind them to dust!

Daemons and Forest Spirit heavy WE armies (and ethereal VC lists) don't have this option however. At least WE and VC can leave out their magic attack units though, unlike Daemons.

I agree. The banner needs to be 55 points so that you can only take it on the BSB thus increasing the risk to lose it.

It would still be worth more than 55 points imo but yes, forcing it on a BSB would mean at least people can put rank and file attacks into it to drop it.

rohansoldier wrote:
I admit to not knowing much about the Banner of the World Dragon other than that it apparantly gives a single unit a 2++ ward against all magic damage. Is that right?

I think that is an item that should never have been pointed so that it could be used by a unit standard bearer. I mean, Ogres have the Rune Maw which redirects enemy spells cast on the unit on a 2+ (and does nothing to stop magic attacks in combat unlike BOTWD) and that is 60 points (meaning that only an Ogre BSB can carry it).

I have no problem with what I have heard about BOTWD except for the fact that it can be carried in a unit and not sniped out unlike a BSB.

The worst part of it seems to me though that it has been designed to counter certain armies while doing next to nothing to others. If I was to run into a unit with this banner with my Ogres, I would probably shrug, cast buff spells on my own units and then proceed to slam them into the unit and grind them to dust!

Daemons and Forest Spirit heavy WE armies (and ethereal VC lists) don't have this option however. At least WE and VC can leave out their magic attack units though, unlike Daemons.

A couple of the posters over on Warseer did the math, and Daemons need something silly like 960+ S3 attacks to drop a 30 man unit with the banner...
(I believe a large brick of Daemonettes was used since they are the cheapest Core option and can gain bonuses like ASF through their Heralds)

Now, provided the High Elf player has at least two brain cells to rub together, there's not way Daemons are going to be able to throw that many attacks into said unit during an actual game.
Daemons only hope is latterly to hex the unit into oblivion, while #6 spell'ing it with Dwellers (which requires Kairos) or Final Trans (Tzeentch only), and hitting said unit in the flanks/rear with multiple daemonic units!

Sure, if the banner is only protecting say a 500-600pts unit in a 2000+ pts game, Daemons can win if they're super careful and play a much better game than their High Elf opponent...
The real concern is, there is nothing to prevent a High Elf player, (even in a tournament), from simply plonking ALL their characters into the banner unit and thus ensure at least 45-50% or more of their entire army is pretty much untouchable to absolutely anything the Daemon player can throw at it.

Thus, the plain outrage by the entire Daemon community!

Very premature to judge this but I'm leaning towards no. HE still have no super effective way of dealing with hordes or the dreaded Daemon Prince. High magic is not good, all those direct damage spells make the lore attribute somewhat worthless as you want the ward on a combat unit but then can't cast DD spells.

I think the new book will stay at about the same level as the past one.

 John Rainbow wrote:
Very premature to judge this but I'm leaning towards no. HE still have no super effective way of dealing with hordes or the dreaded Daemon Prince. High magic is not good, all those direct damage spells make the lore attribute somewhat worthless as you want the ward on a combat unit but then can't cast DD spells.

I think the new book will stay at about the same level as the past one.

DP is beaten by world banner, easily.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
Good points Experiment and will admit that my ignorance with the DoC book is not helping . However do not DoC still have a very strong magic phase? My buddy who has DoC and runs them very well (he won Fantasy Ard Boyz one of the last times they ran it for the western region so he knows his stuff) says he plans to spam hexes and debuffs since they still work on the unit like crazy and utilize "speedbump" units to basically create a wiffleball matchup while he cleans up the rest of his army. Seems like a pretty legit strategy to me and just an example that yes the banner is good but there are ways to counter it.

Our magic phase got worse overall;
- Heralds going up in pts overall
- No more Loremaster makes Tzeentch a sad-sad panda
- Still cannot legally take a Lv4 unless you're playing at least 1600pts game! (at which point you get a bare naked Daemon Prince with only enough pts left to get a single gift! )
- No more access to abilities like Miscast protection, or +1PD, or even a fing Dispel Scroll!!! (I'm really pissed at this - why are we the only army with such a crippling disadvantage?)

Nurgle & Slaanesh magic is still scary though, thanks to all the buffs/hexes available, plus they can instead access Death & Shadow lores making them very versatile.

Tzeentch got eye-raped, bent over backwards and then ruthlessly sodomised however! The God of bloody Magic has the worst lore in the game, and can only access Metal to make up for it...

And yes, speed bumps like solo Beasts of Nurgle or small units of MSU Core can work, except vs a pure points-denial style BotWD elf army... At that point, there's just too much locked away under the banner and Daemons are then relying purely on magic-nuking the elves to kingdom come! (hence, the griping, because 'fun games' vs HE's will now come down to ;is the HE player going to be a giant donkeycave today or not?')


Of course, guess what mono-God army I have?!
'Tis going to be a very painful 4-5 years for all of us loyal Tzeentchian devotees... Hopefully the rumors prove true that 9th either allows allies and/or resets the whole system with a new Ravening Hordes style release and buries this horrific & sad excuse of an army book.

I devoted myself to Tzeentch long ago. BotWD is a half-baked idea that looks like was made to continuously beat the out of us Tzeentchian devotees.........and wood elves too. Didn't Tzeentch get screwed over enough without dealing with this. I mean there daemons damn it.

The army definitely looks a lot better.

I haven't had a good look at the rules, but I'm heading to a tourney in a couple of weeks, I'll report back if I see them.

I get the vibe that the book is pretty undercosted, but I haven't put the slightest bit of research into it.

I'll say that beneath the new toys they are still T3 with 4-5+ saves, and that helps, if only a bit.

So are bloodletters.

True, it's a minuscule weakness, at the most.

But the Banner aside, the optimist in me thinks the book will be fine when the hype dies down. It's an unforgivable blow to Daemon players, for sure, but they've been doing fairly well with the other books.

The T3 and 5+ armor save comes out on top as the balancing factor until you start seeing lists that can easily slap on moderate to severe ward saves on those units as well, thus offsetting their weakness (a hallmark trait of a mat ward army list / codex)

If we ignore the BotWD for a little while, what else in the book is strong enough to move it up to top tier? Both Sword Masters and White lions are worse due to the loss of rerolls. Phoenix Guard and Dragon Princes are better, but the magic potential is much worse. What am I missing?

White Lions actually got better if you're taking them in massive units- a unit of 40 now, compared to a unit of 40 before, will actually get more hits because at that point the extra 10 attacks are better than re-rolls (assuming you're fighting WS4 or lower). By and large though, I'll agree they got a little bit worse as blocks of 40 are quite rare and unwieldy, as well as the increase in minimum unit size.

Overall, you're not really missing anything. The general consensus is that the book is very middle of the road, and so far playing with and against the book is leading me to agree with that assessment.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If we ignore the BotWD for a little while, what else in the book is strong enough to move it up to top tier? Both Sword Masters and White lions are worse due to the loss of rerolls. Phoenix Guard and Dragon Princes are better, but the magic potential is much worse. What am I missing?

Not so much top tier but the parts of the book I am digging at the moment are as follows
1, Cheap access to bolt throwers is awesome! I have been fielding a battery of 4 for my last couple of test games and for 280 points its becoming one of my auto includes.
2, The phoenix (ive no idea what the plural is) in both flavors seem top notch.
3, The loremaster is a great source of utility (hate the model tho)
4, Reavers being core is not excatly meta changing but its really nice to leave the horde of spearmen at home and get some non eagle chaff in my lists
5, reaver bow+potion of strength is again not game changing but a lot of fun.
6, low casting values on HE magic

overall a balanced book the banner could possibly be abused against very specific armies but if your list tailoring you a douche and not very good at the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tmarichards wrote:
White Lions actually got better if you're taking them in massive units- a unit of 40 now, compared to a unit of 40 before, will actually get more hits because at that point the extra 10 attacks are better than re-rolls (assuming you're fighting WS4 or lower). By and large though, I'll agree they got a little bit worse as blocks of 40 are quite rare and unwieldy, as well as the increase in minimum unit size.

Overall, you're not really missing anything. The general consensus is that the book is very middle of the road, and so far playing with and against the book is leading me to agree with that assessment.

Slightly off topic but are you going to roll your Woodies out for your next tourny to try and play the meta? (I hate that one of the armies I have to fear is our rustic cousins from across the seas)