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Alright so I have recently fought High elves and got destroyed all because of that banner. I now see that the best thing to do against it is to just stay away from it.

But that does not sit right with me since I play daemons and would like to destroy everything.

So I wanted to post this idea of how to deal with this on here to get some feedback on to what others think about the strategy to deal with those annoying High elves and the banner. Please feel free to add other ideas and or pick apart mine (since i am not 100% sure it will even work).

I play a mix between the gods. I mostly play Nurgle and a few other things thrown in when i need them.

I do not play any slaanesh so again i am not sure how this will work.

My idea- so i was thinking of adding a Herald of Slaanesh alone running next to my block of PB so that anything shooting at her i could use the "look out sir rule" (since she can’t join the unit). Doing this gives her the ability to move around and flank a unit if needed. (Getting her where the BSB is)

I was going to give her the loci that gives her the ability to force a model to a challenge. The idea here is to challenge the banner of the world dragon and with the loci I get to choose who accepts.

now to the fighting, Herald of Slaanesh is a lot stronger than the typical HE so even with the 2+ save i think i would have the advantage of eventually getting 1 wound. Now i do know that sometimes the BSB will be on something like white lions or something where this will not work, but so far i have only fought the banner in a typical HE group. With the challenge underway this protects her from others attacking and so forth, and hopefully once he is dead, since BSB's cannot be taken up by other guys the banner will be lost.

So what do you all think? Yes, I do understand that it is a lot of points just for an assassin, but if you have played daemons and had to fight banner of the world dragon then you know how hard it is to do anything to the group with this BSB. Also she could be useful again for other challenges and character killing so not just a one shot kill.
Again this is just an idea and I wanted to see what will work and what will not work with this.
Also i want to mention that i do not know much about the HE army so if they have some rule or thing that will make this not work let me know.

I look forward to the criticism on this topic.
Thanks.

A good idea is a lvl 4 mage with lore of metal, and cast Final Transmutation on that unit. You have 1/6 to kill the bsb, otherwise, you kill 1/3 of the unit, then destroy them by combat res.

@Taylor:

The big problem with your idea is the fact that the BotWD is cheap enough to be taken as a magical unit standard and does not have to go on a BSB. Consequently, you'll rarely have a chance to challenge out the banner bearer because it's not on a character.

For DoC, the best answer is in the form of the big "test of die" spells from the BRB rules. Metal's Final Transmutation is good if you're playing a Lvl 4 Tzeentch. If you feel like taking Kairos, you could also use something like Dwellers Below.

I ran the numbers on a block of 30 White Lions with my Mono-Khorne list, and I'd have to hit that unit in the front, one flank, and rear with about half my 2500 point army to have a chance of winning combat.

Yeah learn double flee and take seekers never engage it.

I think there's been some misunderstanding here: The Banner is carried by a unit's Standard Bearer, not the BSB. Because it is the unit standard it cannot be Challenged, killed or prevented from working short of killing every rank'n'file member of the unit. There is no shortcut to removing it; there are going to be 25-40 dudes rocking that ward save and you need to kill every single one to get any points from it.

The most fundamental thing you need to accept is that it *cannot* be fought in close combat. You can throw all 4 Greater Daemons against it at the same time and would still lose that fight. Similarly you are extremely unlikely to shoot it off. Even a perfectly-aimed Blue Fire is going to be lucky getting 3 models removed. The only reliable way to strip models away is through Transmutation, Sun or Dwellers (Kairos!) but not only are you rolling against the legendary HE dispel power, but you would need to succeed multiple times to actually turn the unit into something killable.

Quite frankly, you cannot kill it. You can, however, survive it. The game will likely devolve into feeding it multiple units of 60pt chaff, accepting that he has been given ~300pts for zero effort, and hope that the rest of your army can fight the rest of his without exposing a charge lane to his deathblock. If you happen to have some Slaaneshii or Shadow magic to hand, you can fish for lucky Hexes to tank his movement and remove it from the game for a turn.

Mozzamanx wrote:
I think there's been some misunderstanding here: The Banner is carried by a unit's Standard Bearer, not the BSB. Because it is the unit standard it cannot be Challenged, killed or prevented from working short of killing every rank'n'file member of the unit. There is no shortcut to removing it; there are going to be 25-40 dudes rocking that ward save and you need to kill every single one to get any points from it.

The most fundamental thing you need to accept is that it *cannot* be fought in close combat. You can throw all 4 Greater Daemons against it at the same time and would still lose that fight. Similarly you are extremely unlikely to shoot it off. Even a perfectly-aimed Blue Fire is going to be lucky getting 3 models removed. The only reliable way to strip models away is through Transmutation, Sun or Dwellers (Kairos!) but not only are you rolling against the legendary HE dispel power, but you would need to succeed multiple times to actually turn the unit into something killable.

Quite frankly, you cannot kill it. You can, however, survive it. The game will likely devolve into feeding it multiple units of 60pt chaff, accepting that he has been given ~300pts for zero effort, and hope that the rest of your army can fight the rest of his without exposing a charge lane to his deathblock. If you happen to have some Slaaneshii or Shadow magic to hand, you can fish for lucky Hexes to tank his movement and remove it from the game for a turn.

Pretty much this. Final Tranny+ Treason is my go to combo for this.

Thanks for all the input.
I was not aware that the banner of the world dragon was not a BSB my mistake.
In that case my idea will not really work.
Thanks for the other advice though to deal with it. we are only at about 1500 pts in the escalation game we are playing so I can’t afford a high lvl mage yet so the magic will have to wait till we get higher points.

Regarding the banner and it’s 2+ save that it gets,
From my understanding from what the banner does, the unit gets a save against all magic towards it. Does this save count as a ward save? My question is for the final transmutation spell, I know it says that no saves allowed. I am guessing this includes the banners save as well? Am I correct in thinking this?
Also, even if the SB model is destroyed in that spell. The banner would not be destroyed and someone else in the unit can just pick it up. So you would have to destroy all of them to get rid of it. Is that correct?

Exactly right. The reason these spells work is because they don't inflict Wounds, they simply remove models from play. If you don't suffer a Wound you cannot attempt the save. So they still have the 2+ ward, but the spell ignores it. It is why these spells are the only reliable way to actually get some kills; because they ignore the absurd defensive bonus given by the Banner.

If a rank-and-file model drops the Banner, another member of the unit can pick it up. The only models that can be properly killed are the Champion and any attached characters. You can allocate attacks against the Banner all day but as long as there is another Elf in the unit to pick it up, you don't actually remove any protection.

The BotWD does, in fact, provide a "save."

However, Dwellers, Purple Sun, and Final Transmutation do not cause wounds. Consequently, BotWD does not allow a save against those spells.

 captain collius wrote:
Yeah learn double flee and take seekers never engage it.

Daemons can't flee, so doing so would be cheating...

The ONLY ways Daemons can deal with a SuperSkillful Crutchbanner are:
1. Take a Keeper of Secrets w/Lv4 Slaany magic. Turn 1, march 20" strait at the center of the HE battleline, 6-dice the boosted version of Cacophonic Choir.
Nukes all their chaff, screws over the movements anything that survives, maybe sneaks a wound through the 2++ on the banner unit. Add Fiends for lore attribute profit!

2. Miasma + Acquiesence.
Bring a bunch of Lv1 Slaany Heralds who can default to Miasma from lore of Shadow, and along with the Kipper who (hopefully!) rolled up Acquiesence, pound the banner unit with those Movement-nuking spells until one gets through.
Run the f*** away from it and beat the crap out of the rest of the Elf army.

3. C***block it with conga-lined Beasts of Nurgle. It'll take even White Lions a few rounds to chew through 2-3 Beasts when they can't bring their full frontage to bear.
And as with option #2, GTFO the rest of your army away from the banner unit and punk the rest of the Elves not sporting a 2++

4. Feed it 3x 5-strong Fury units all game.
Then proceed to repeat the 'running away and killing as much as you can from what's left'

5. Bring Kairos.
Take his 'Light' Head w/Final Trans + Dwellers.
Add in 4-6 units of 10 Horrors for added Channeling rolls to fuel your magic. Cast both unit deleting spells at the offending unit and likely explode your chicken mage in the process...

6. Bring 4 levels of Death wizards and 4 levels of Tzeentch wizards.
Cast Doom & Darkness on the banner unit + Treason of Tzeentch. (Treason always second, because it's the more important spell so D&D is more for scaring the crap out of the HE and pulling out dispel dice/scroll)
Destroy a nearby unit and force a panic check on the banner unit who now get only 1 shot at passing a Ld8. (no General's Ld and no BSB re-roll either!)

7. Bring 4+ levels of Tzeentch wizards, (NOT! Horrors though - they only get Tzeentch magic!), and aim for Final Trans. 6-dice it every turn until your caster explodes horribly.



If all else fails, fight fire with fire and do the following:
1. Give your Greater Daemons the Portalglyph Hellforged Artifact, and have him put himself into it! (yes, this is perfectly "legal", despite being really stupid and entirely against the rules as intended!)

2. Deploy as much line of sight blocking terrain as possible across your back corner, then stick your most expensive stuff behind it so only line of sight ignoring attacks can hit it. Meanwhile, things like the Phoenix have no place to legally land without breaking the 1" rule.
Only deploy things like a Baleful Torrent Soul Grinder, 4-6+ Beast brick and some token Fury chaff in actual line of sight. These should be able to both chaff-up the banner and kill a bunch of Elves.
Overall though, this pretty much leads to a game of "Nothing's-happening-ever-hammer" and effectively just play for a very boring draw.

3. When your opponent whines that you're being a complete tool, point at his banner unit and remind him s/he started it by using that stupid piece of crap!

What else is a HE supposed to bring? It sucks for daemons, but for the majority of HE TAC lists the banner needs to be there to be competitive. HE elites get rolled to easily with T3 and no armor. The HE book is tier 2 at best.

 Goldphish wrote:
What else is a HE supposed to bring? It sucks for daemons, but for the majority of HE TAC lists the banner needs to be there to be competitive. HE elites get rolled to easily with T3 and no armor. The HE book is tier 2 at best.

LOL.
Please, nobody feed this troll.

-Matt

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Goldphish wrote:
What else is a HE supposed to bring? It sucks for daemons, but for the majority of HE TAC lists the banner needs to be there to be competitive. HE elites get rolled to easily with T3 and no armor. The HE book is tier 2 at best.

LOL.
Please, nobody feed this troll.

-Matt

Actually, I find attitudes like this to be the norm for a goodly number of HE players... It'll be fun times in a few years when they lose their shiny super crutch and can no longer keep their army on auto-pilot!

 Goldphish wrote:
What else is a HE supposed to bring? It sucks for daemons, but for the majority of HE TAC lists the banner needs to be there to be competitive. HE elites get rolled to easily with T3 and no armor. The HE book is tier 2 at best.

.....

>> saying that the BotWD is necessary for competitiveness
>> implying that HE are "easily rolled over"
>> talking about army tiers

Come on.

HE are a pretty good army with lots of diversity and strong magic. It's WHFB where most of the time, general skill is really important unlike 40k where it's mostly about having the better list.

You know, I don't understand why HE players think they "have" to take the BotWD to be competitive.

The fact of the matter is that the banner really only has a significant effect on a couple of armies. It affects everything in the DoC book and most of the artillery for Dwarves and Skaven. It has affect against some of the units in WOC. It protects against Magic Missiles and such, but who actually uses those spells on the big blocks that the BotWD goes on? Probably the best thing it does is protect the unit against some of the worst affects of miscasts.

It provides no protection from the things that cause the greatest amount of damage: the "6" spells and strong combat blocks.

Really, the only thing that makes the banner so obnoxious is that it isn't BSB only.

I disagree also that you need to take the banner to be competitive. There are plenty of HE players that I have seen do very well without the banner (check out some of the army blogs on Ulthuan.net) and a lot of comp packs that limit choices if you take it.

Having said this however, the banner is pretty amazing and in a tournament environment, why wouldn't you take it? People who play competitively are trying to win games after all.

BotWD is one of the biggest cheats in the game. I hope that they at least raise it at a proper cost, about 225 points.

626- I forgot about your damned itp. Sorry still speed bump it pin it with two fury units. Just be a donkey back at em

Yeah I play high elves when I use the banner its on a small (20-21 white lions possibly with a noble running off to the side as a flanking unit. Also the only elite without protection to get to combat is swordmasters. Also we are not chaos warriors don't exxpect a 3+ on foot soldiers it ain't gonna happen


Automatically Appended Next Post:

KeyserSoze wrote:
BotWD is one of the biggest cheats in the game. I hope that they at least raise it at a proper cost, about 225 points.

It is not a cheat for chrissakes. You really have no understanding of balance. If it was 75 pts no one would have a problem with it except you. The problem is in a unit it is The 39 model of 40 you kill meaning it takes 234 wounds give or take to get to it. If its on a bsb that number decreases to 12.


(All numbers after armor save cause I'm busy and don't have time to do the math if I'm off post a correction the post stands.)

yeah, even a 5 point increase would make it, well, if not balanced at least a lot more "fine"

Saldiven wrote:
You know, I don't understand why HE players think they "have" to take the BotWD to be competitive.

The fact of the matter is that the banner really only has a significant effect on a couple of armies. It affects everything in the DoC book and most of the artillery for Dwarves and Skaven. It has affect against some of the units in WOC. It protects against Magic Missiles and such, but who actually uses those spells on the big blocks that the BotWD goes on? Probably the best thing it does is protect the unit against some of the worst affects of miscasts.

It provides no protection from the things that cause the greatest amount of damage: the "6" spells and strong combat blocks.

Really, the only thing that makes the banner so obnoxious is that it isn't BSB only.

The Skillbanner's biggest gaff is the actually the Miscast protection in all honesty. It's simply a catch-all cop-out that allows HE's to 6-dice with wild abandon, as the only results they truly "fear" are losing the spell in question. Even getting sucked into the Realm of Chaos is a 'meh' risk overall as it requires a double bad result with the dice.
On the other hand, they get to trade losing a few power dice for likely nuking the most dangerous threat in their opponent's army... hardly a "risk" to miscasting anymore.

Or else you see "tactics" such as;
- Lv4 Shadow wizard tosses Mindrazor at the unit in front of his bunker. Miscasts. Lore attribute kicks in before the Miscast result is rolled, so Lv4 swaps places with a character in the Banner unit, gains the 2++ safety net + maybe nukes some enemy models too. Cast 1 more Shadow spell, replace Lv4 back into his bunker.

- Slam Crutchbanner unit into enemy unit. Miscast on purpose in order to try and drop an extra template onto your opponent before combat.

The two units you typically see the banner on, ie: Caucasian Lions or a Silverhelm bus, also share 1 common weakness: Magic!
The oh-so-skillful banner stomps all over that supposed "weakness", allowing the HE player to build a near foolproof hammer that most armies will thus have considerable trouble dealing with beyond playing a boring 'chaff-it and runaway!' game. Meanwhile, Daemons just get plain skullf***ed by it. (Imagine the poor Khorne player's so-called 'options!')

Add to this that HE's laugh at the 2 main Deathstar counters, namely Purplefun and Pit thanks to army wide I5 or higher. Only other Elves, Lizzies, Empire & Brets get access to Dwellers, while Daemons require Kairos. (and he's actually a rather mediocre choice in the 8th ed book)
Vamps, WoC, DoC, all Elves, Empire, Lizzies get access to Final Trans, so you can claim on average a 1/3rd of the unit per successful casting.
Orcs & Gobbos and Beasts get to eat that poop sandwich however, while Skaven must rely on Dreaded 13th. (so again, they get a poop sandwich vs. a Helm or DP bannerstar'ed unit)
Overall, even the unit erasing spells are not much of an option, as outside of Dwellers, (which is limited access and WL's don't fear as much), simply because Elves are near-immune to the nastiest ones.

At it's worst, you get the smug little HE's tooling up their gunline list with a Banner of Averlorn + BotWD Lion unit centering it... Bubble casting all the buffs at +8 and getting the option for a once per game double Banishment, supported by maxed Bolters, Sisters & Archers, with Reavers running the chaff rolls.


The MattWard Banner(tm) is easily tied with the DoC Portalglyph (also by St. Ward) as the two most stupidly broken magic items of 8th edition.

I've been wondering for a long time why Ward gets to write army books or codices anymore.

He just really isn't good at writing rules.

Saldiven wrote:
I've been wondering for a long time why Ward gets to write army books or codices anymore.

He just really isn't good at writing rules.

Did you buy the army book?

Eh.

Whining from Demon players aside, especially 626's little rant that was more about insulting HE players for taking an item as opposed to talking about the item itself, you already received the best advice in the thread.

Test or die. Whether it's Dwellers, Toughness Tests, or being turned to Gold, using those spells to thin out the Elves is the way to go.

Lastly, as long as the Demon meta involves Beasts of Nurgle spam, 2x Skullcannons, Choir Bombs, and stuffing Greater Demons in pants pockets, I'll grin and point out my WDB every time.

Without WDB, High Elves stand no chance against the "Demon List" that plays itself and pops up at every damn tournament and con.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Goldphish wrote:
What else is a HE supposed to bring? It sucks for daemons, but for the majority of HE TAC lists the banner needs to be there to be competitive. HE elites get rolled to easily with T3 and no armor. The HE book is tier 2 at best.

LOL.
Please, nobody feed this troll.

-Matt

Actually, I find attitudes like this to be the norm for a goodly number of HE players... It'll be fun times in a few years when they lose their shiny super crutch and can no longer keep their army on auto-pilot!

I completely missed this one.

"Golly, it sure will be fun in a few years when Beasts of Nurgle get nerfed to hell, Skull Cannons cost 245 points, and Demons can't just push a wall of flesh in a straight line to a win via auto-pilot!"

 Thunderfrog wrote:


Test or die. Whether it's Dwellers, Toughness Tests, or being turned to Gold, using those spells to thin out the Elves is the way to go.

Dwellers is the only real threat from the 'test or die' spells, all the Toughness test spells still allow for ward(banner) saves & Elves laugh at Initiative tests.

This is not how you control a BotWD unit if you're a Daemon player.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
Lastly, as long as the Demon meta involves Beasts of Nurgle spam, 2x Skullcannons, Choir Bombs, and stuffing Greater Demons in pants pockets, I'll grin and point out my WDB every time.

The difference being, only TFG's argue that Beasts aren't grossly OTT. Cacobombing was adopted mainly in response to the filthy banner.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
Without WDB, High Elves stand no chance against the "Demon List" that plays itself and pops up at every damn tournament and con.

This is a hilarious hyperbole and you know it... High Elves still have Phoenix Guard, Lv4's w/Book of Hoeth, High magic & stackable ward saves, Frosties, the best chaff & anti-chaff in the game, Loremaster, Alarielle + Banner of Averlorn, Light Covens!, Sisters, super cheap Bolters...

The Skillbanner is just a giant punch in the throat.

Khurgle Wall falls flat vs. Purplefun (which HE's take) or Lore of Shadow heavy armies (which HE's can take).
Cacobombing relies on going first.

 Thunderfrog wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

 Goldphish wrote:
What else is a HE supposed to bring? It sucks for daemons, but for the majority of HE TAC lists the banner needs to be there to be competitive. HE elites get rolled to easily with T3 and no armor. The HE book is tier 2 at best.

LOL.
Please, nobody feed this troll.

-Matt

Actually, I find attitudes like this to be the norm for a goodly number of HE players... It'll be fun times in a few years when they lose their shiny super crutch and can no longer keep their army on auto-pilot!

I completely missed this one.

"Golly, it sure will be fun in a few years when Beasts of Nurgle get nerfed to hell, Skull Cannons cost 245 points, and Demons can't just push a wall of flesh in a straight line to a win via auto-pilot!"

Okay, please show us again on the doll where the bad Daemon player touched you.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
I've been wondering for a long time why Ward gets to write army books or codices anymore.

He just really isn't good at writing rules.

Did you buy the army book?

I got the current DoC book as a birthday present. The last one of his books I purchased was the previous DoC book, which was a window into his balance issues in rules writing.

And, I do have to agree with Experiment on part of the last post. DoC players from the get go have said that BoN and Khannons were underpriced; however HE players just can't seem to understand why anyone has anything negative to say about the BotWD.

Seriously, the thing should have been pointed such that it was BSB only. 25 points is entirely too cheap for it.

Oh, and Thunderfrog, the current DoC book is, a whole, a nerfing over the last book. An army made under the previous book would, in my opinion, be far more competitive than any army you can make with the current book.

(Edited for grammar.)

Saldiven wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
I've been wondering for a long time why Ward gets to write army books or codices anymore.

He just really isn't good at writing rules.

Did you buy the army book?

I got the current DoC book as a birthday present. The last one of his books I purchased was the previous DoC book, which was a window into his balance issues in rules writing.

And, I do have to agree with Experiment on part of the last post. DoC players from the get go have said that BoN and Khannons were underpriced; however HE players just can't seem to understand why anyone has anything negative to say about the BotWD.

Seriously, the thing should have been pointed such that it was BSB only. 25 points is entirely too cheap for it.

Oh, and Thunderfrog, the current DoC book is, a whole, a nerfing over the last book. An army made under the previous book would, in my opinion, be far more competitive than any army you can make with the current book.

(Edited for grammar.)

The Banner is actually 50pts, but absolutely agree, anyone with a shred of decency and self respect will readily admit that it's far too good at that price... 55pts would have been bearable, but 75pts is probably more 'fair' across the board.
The Miscast shenanigans alone are enough to warrant such a cost, let alone how easy it would still be to combine it with multiple characters in the same unit to force the BSB into the second rank and thus keep him out of reach until at least 1 front rank character cops it.


I think on the whole our old book "Tournament" list(s) would still be just as obnoxious as our current book though... Siren Standard, cheap Loremasters, super cheap B.Letters, old Flamers, Ld-bombing, Slaany magic... still right up there with our current 2-3 obnoxious "Tournament" lists.

The more important point however is true - we'd have far more list variation and viable options overall than our current poop-fest of a book which tends to be either 'stupidly good' or else bottom rung.

Saldiven wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:

Saldiven wrote:
I've been wondering for a long time why Ward gets to write army books or codices anymore.

He just really isn't good at writing rules.

Did you buy the army book?

I got the current DoC book as a birthday present. The last one of his books I purchased was the previous DoC book, which was a window into his balance issues in rules writing.

And, I do have to agree with Experiment on part of the last post. DoC players from the get go have said that BoN and Khannons were underpriced; however HE players just can't seem to understand why anyone has anything negative to say about the BotWD.

Seriously, the thing should have been pointed such that it was BSB only. 25 points is entirely too cheap for it.

Oh, and Thunderfrog, the current DoC book is, a whole, a nerfing over the last book. An army made under the previous book would, in my opinion, be far more competitive than any army you can make with the current book.

(Edited for grammar.)

I've said, on numerous occasions in this forum, that BotWD should have been BSB only. Making it untouchable via unit standard was a terrible design. I make absolutely no argument there, though I do question whether or not it's half as good against any other book as it is against Demons and now Wood Elves. (Enchanted Arrows). My problem is when Demon players accuse high elf players of having either no skill, no conscience, or crutchlisting when they bring it and then turn around and complain about how bad / one dimeonsional their book is and how they have no choice but to Caco-bomb or Nurgle-spam.

If BotWD is 25pts undercost, and BoN are 15 points undercost, isn't it an even swap in cheapness for you to field 6 beasts in a unit and 2 as flankers as it is for me to bring the banner? Or two Skull Cannons? Should I make posts about your Crutchcannons? Should I proclaim that every demon win is luck based because of good rolls on the RoC? The Demon players in this thread are just as guilty of hyperbole as I am.

(Admittedly, an Elf player can tailor a specific list for fighting Khurgle, which is an amazing all comers list.)

I never said that the banner wasn't stupid. The banner is under cost and promotes deathstar units which I don't enjoy playing in the slightest. The HE book just isn't that great against top tier armies without taking Book/Banner or both. Every HE list looks the same for a reason, the book is pretty inflexible at the highest competitive level.

High elf book rocks

I fight my friend all the time, he used to run mono khorne, then switched to all gods after the first battle.

I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, HE just murder demons.

Phoenix Guard with flaming banner takes care of nurgle, sea guard can destroy horrors and khorne demons ultimate weakness T3 models for ultra expensive being mowed down by arrows.

Skull cannons are great for move and fire, but eventually get destroyed by rogue frostheart phoenix.

This is my opinion.

Using portalglyph on himself, which, I would like to point out, I came up with as a strategy in YMDC, isn't very good. So you can remove from play 500pts and have a 2000pt army vs. a 2500pt army. Most times, you aren't going to want to do that...

Banner should never have been magic attacks. They didn't think it through. It would still be a solid item without that. MOST items in the individual army books aren't godlike. They are flavor. Very rarely auto-include like the 7th ed books. You'd have to be stupid not to take BoTWD, however.

Saying 3 spells are THE counter is essentially saying there's no counter. No one should be forced into taking such a narrow range of options just to have a chance. It's not fun. It's not strategic. It's the most extreme version of rock scissors paper. Nearly everything in this game has multiple counters to allow flexibility and personal play style.

If you want a laugh, dig up the old Teclis threads from 7th. Do a word replace on Teclis and BoTWD and you'll hear pretty much exactly the same arguments.

Some people want unbalanced. I don't get it, personally. I was playing a historical war game not long ago and some units got nerfed and one guy was screaming bloody murder. And he was like, those things were better in real life. And we were all like, yeah, but this is a game. And a game is supposed to be fun and competitive. If I want to kick a puppy I can go buy a puppy and kick it.