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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!