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 Grey Templar wrote:

Dwellers is a strength test. And yes it is situational. It does nothing against non-magical attacks or spells that disallow saves.

You can still be debuffed to uselessness and against a unit that doesn't have magic attacks you have a 50 point banner of nothing.

There are only a few armies that use combat lords to get combat resolution, the majority rely on the RnF to do the actual fighting.


This banner will counter a Red Fury Vampire, Doombull, and a tooled up Chaos Lord. And daemons of course. Other armies won't care so much. They'll fight the unit just like any other deathstar.

Its hardly a broken item.

- Only 5 armies in the game have access to Dwellers... So everyone else uses what now?
WoC, DoC, DE's have access to Final Trans, while Skaven have Dreaded 13th
Ogres can potentially outfight it with a Gutstar, while a VC Blender Lord without a magic weapon could potentially tip the balance. (depends entirely on the Grave Guard not whiffing)
So Dwarfs, O&G's, TK's do what now?! (hint: none of them reliably outfight WL's without the help of their fighty characters packing their magical weapons)

- You reliably need to cast 2-3 hexes to 'de-buff into uselessness the unit'. What are the High Elves doing, forgetting they have dispel dice/dispel scroll?
Again, how are DAEMONS supposed to get 2-3 hexes through when we might not even have a Lv4 of our own?! A bunch of over-costed Lv2's aren't getting jack through HE magic defenses.

- Most rank-and-file is either highly inferior to or roughly on-par with High Elf elites, especially now that Martial Prowess gives them +1 additional rank meaning the HE's can frontage-deny like champs.

I think you're seriously underestimating what the banner will do when coupled alongside all the other main buffs the High Elves have recieved...
And again, how is pretty much excluding Daemons from ever competing a good thing again?

JWhex wrote:
Banner of the World Dragon
+2 Save against Magical Attacks
stubborn for nearby dragons
50 points

LOL, brilliant design, make an item that is a hard counter against another army (demons). Wait for it. . . . Matt Ward rides again. He did the EXACT same thing with Grey Knights in 5th edition 40k, made them a hard counter to demons.

I just want to point out that Stubborn applies to friendly and enemy dragons.

I don't know if this was pointed out or not, but there it is. All Dragons (friend or foe) within 12" of the Banner of the World Dragon have the Stubborn special rule.

Dragon Stubbornness isn't a concern, I mean as long as nice large cannons are everywhere, why would I blow a buttload of points on a soon to be corpse. That 2+ though...man, who woulda thought elves could be so durable.

An almighty amount of rage for an item that has yet to be seen on the battlefield...

Seriously, try it first and see what happens. Redirectors are called that for a reason We all managed to get over the Runemaw banner or whatever it is called.

Big block of Phoenix Guard with Banner of the World Dragon and a Wizard using High magic...

3+ ward save against everything, and a 2+ ward save against spells or magic attacks.

Well played Mat Ward, well played.

 lordofthegophers wrote:
Big block of Phoenix Guard with Banner of the World Dragon and a Wizard using High magic...

3+ ward save against everything, and a 2+ ward save against spells or magic attacks.

Well played Mat Ward, well played.

Add Teclis for true silliness!

Who wants to fight S5/T6 elves with a 3++/2++ vs all magical damage?! Anyone...

 lordofthegophers wrote:
Big block of Phoenix Guard with Banner of the World Dragon and a Wizard using High magic...

3+ ward save against everything, and a 2+ ward save against spells or magic attacks.

Well played Mat Ward, well played.

I read through most of the units and some of them are pretty jaw-dropping. When did the entire HE army become about all ward saves all the time (and better than silly DoC). Phoenix Guard are basically DoC Bloodletters without KB but with ASF, +1 ward, +1 armor, bigger magic banner, and can attack in an extra rank, and cost 1 point more. That's pretty nuts.

They have so many units that give ward saves now. I mean their spell lore buffs it. In addition to having a 4d6 S4 DD signature spell. Yeah, that's totally not better than the D6 SD6 DD signature spell the god of magic gives (that also gives your enemy regen). How on earth are those things remotely equivalent? And their lvl 6 spell is pretty much better than any BRB doom spell. It's not a straight up Dwellers, but it's RIP on a unit. Not some wandering template of doom.

The banner is crazy good. It's absolutely wrong to say otherwise. You don't even have to have it on your BSB, like half a dozen units can have it just on their magic standard bearer.

The hard counter that HE is to DoC can't really be overstated. Just doing their normal routine I think HE has a way big leg-up. If HE takes even a marginal step to prepare, I can't see DoC cracking them. I mean every Daemonic unit within 12" of that one lord takes D6 S4 hits. Every round. Without casting. Lord Kroak must be pissed.

O&G and TK are feeling really weak. I thought WoC was pretty crazy (and it is). But there's so many 3+ wards and self-heals in HE. They can point deny forever. And they have some pretty killy units.

DukeRustfield wrote:

 lordofthegophers wrote:
Big block of Phoenix Guard with Banner of the World Dragon and a Wizard using High magic...

3+ ward save against everything, and a 2+ ward save against spells or magic attacks.

Well played Mat Ward, well played.

I read through most of the units and some of them are pretty jaw-dropping. When did the entire HE army become about all ward saves all the time (and better than silly DoC). Phoenix Guard are basically DoC Bloodletters without KB but with ASF, +1 ward, +1 armor, bigger magic banner, and can attack in an extra rank, and cost 1 point more. That's pretty nuts.

They have so many units that give ward saves now. I mean their spell lore buffs it. In addition to having a 4d6 S4 DD signature spell. Yeah, that's totally not better than the D6 SD6 DD signature spell the god of magic gives (that also gives your enemy regen). How on earth are those things remotely equivalent? And their lvl 6 spell is pretty much better than any BRB doom spell. It's not a straight up Dwellers, but it's RIP on a unit. Not some wandering template of doom.

The banner is crazy good. It's absolutely wrong to say otherwise. You don't even have to have it on your BSB, like half a dozen units can have it just on their magic standard bearer.

The hard counter that HE is to DoC can't really be overstated. Just doing their normal routine I think HE has a way big leg-up. If HE takes even a marginal step to prepare, I can't see DoC cracking them. I mean every Daemonic unit within 12" of that one lord takes D6 S4 hits. Every round. Without casting. Lord Kroak must be pissed.

O&G and TK are feeling really weak. I thought WoC was pretty crazy (and it is). But there's so many 3+ wards and self-heals in HE. They can point deny forever. And they have some pretty killy units.

It's a Ward book...
Note how most of his 40k books throughout 5th edition where pretty much +1 over most everyone else.

What's really amusing however is that he's now 3-for-3 in ruining Daemons' day since his infamous "...They should be overpowered!" comment;
- first GK's
- then their horrific 8th edition book
- High Elves

At least he's become consistant in his treatment of Daemons though!

I think it's cool and vibrant to have counters. Even hard counters like Ethereal. But there are hard counters to those counters. DoC can not make themselves non-magic attacks. They can't turn it off.

Fire against regenerating trolls negates regeneration, but trolls are still okay. And you don't HAVE to buy trolls. You have to buy daemons as DoC.

I think they didn't think that one through on the banner. And a few other things, really.

DukeRustfield wrote:

 lordofthegophers wrote:
Big block of Phoenix Guard with Banner of the World Dragon and a Wizard using High magic...

3+ ward save against everything, and a 2+ ward save against spells or magic attacks.

Well played Mat Ward, well played.

I read through most of the units and some of them are pretty jaw-dropping. When did the entire HE army become about all ward saves all the time (and better than silly DoC). Phoenix Guard are basically DoC Bloodletters without KB but with ASF, +1 ward, +1 armor, bigger magic banner, and can attack in an extra rank, and cost 1 point more. That's pretty nuts.

They have so many units that give ward saves now. I mean their spell lore buffs it. In addition to having a 4d6 S4 DD signature spell. Yeah, that's totally not better than the D6 SD6 DD signature spell the god of magic gives (that also gives your enemy regen). How on earth are those things remotely equivalent? And their lvl 6 spell is pretty much better than any BRB doom spell. It's not a straight up Dwellers, but it's RIP on a unit. Not some wandering template of doom.

The banner is crazy good. It's absolutely wrong to say otherwise. You don't even have to have it on your BSB, like half a dozen units can have it just on their magic standard bearer.

The hard counter that HE is to DoC can't really be overstated. Just doing their normal routine I think HE has a way big leg-up. If HE takes even a marginal step to prepare, I can't see DoC cracking them. I mean every Daemonic unit within 12" of that one lord takes D6 S4 hits. Every round. Without casting. Lord Kroak must be pissed.

O&G and TK are feeling really weak. I thought WoC was pretty crazy (and it is). But there's so many 3+ wards and self-heals in HE. They can point deny forever. And they have some pretty killy units.

Well the book will hopefully kill the delusion that there is parity among the 8th edition army books. It is not entirely surprising that the author of the 7th edition demon book would write another broken list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 John Rainbow wrote:
An almighty amount of rage for an item that has yet to be seen on the battlefield...

A large number of people have played enough warhammer to identify the expected effect of both significantly overpowering and significantly underpowered units to be able to evaluate them without playing several games. Once you have a very solid understanding of the rules, knowledge of the various armies and their capabilities and playing experience it is not terribly difficult to predict how certain things will play out.

 John Rainbow wrote:

Seriously, try it first and see what happens. Redirectors are called that for a reason

It is fairly safe to assume you have not bothered to read the other posts in the thread where this has been discussed extensively

I can't see where you are going to come across the Elfstar with 75% of its force in one block, and if its not and elfstar, just avoid it or tie it up. Do you still have the item that forces them to charge you?

You've mentioned that there are people out there who will list-tailor and happily put most of their army into one evil anti-demon block and ruin your fun. Well, yea. True. It could happen. But you know the people at your game store better than we do, and it's safe to assume that after going through that once, you just won't play that guy or you will bring something other than demons.

Two, while it is certainly true a veteran player can crunch the numbers to see exactly what he's getting out of a unit, a lot of that math falls by the wayside at local uncomped tournaments. I play a lot of them, and I usually do well by bringing what defeats my local meta. I was fortunate to play Warriors of Chaos and Tomb Kings, both of which can easily counter a lot of the current meta.

(Death stars? WoC can keep feeding redirecting marauder horsies or doggies all day. MSU? Kalida makes one dissapear every turn while the Casket makes the rest worthless.)

The point to the second rant that there is always something you can do. I don't profess to know squat about the new demons book, but are the templates dropped by the Skull Cannon and the Death-Crab magical or just flaming?

Every attack by the demon army is magical. The templates dropped by anything in the army are magical.

The stomps and thunderstomps are magical.

The impact hits are magical.

The melee attacks are all magical.

 Thunderfrog wrote:


The point to the second rant that there is always something you can do. I don't profess to know squat about the new demons book, but are the templates dropped by the Skull Cannon and the Death-Crab magical or just flaming?

Everything's magic. There's nothing that is non-magical in the Daemons book.

 Thunderfrog wrote:


I can't see where you are going to come across the Elfstar with 75% of its force in one block, and if its not and elfstar, just avoid it or tie it up. Do you still have the item that forces them to charge you?

You've mentioned that there are people out there who will list-tailor and happily put most of their army into one evil anti-demon block and ruin your fun. Well, yea. True. It could happen. But you know the people at your game store better than we do, and it's safe to assume that after going through that once, you just won't play that guy or you will bring something other than demons.

Two, while it is certainly true a veteran player can crunch the numbers to see exactly what he's getting out of a unit, a lot of that math falls by the wayside at local uncomped tournaments. I play a lot of them, and I usually do well by bringing what defeats my local meta. I was fortunate to play Warriors of Chaos and Tomb Kings, both of which can easily counter a lot of the current meta.

(Death stars? WoC can keep feeding redirecting marauder horsies or doggies all day. MSU? Kalida makes one dissapear every turn while the Casket makes the rest worthless.)

The point to the second rant that there is always something you can do. I don't profess to know squat about the new demons book, but are the templates dropped by the Skull Cannon and the Death-Crab magical or just flaming?

Absolutely EVERYTHING! Daemons do is magical now... Skillcannon shooting, thunderstomps/stomps, chariot impact hits...
Even Granddaddy Nurgle's most hienous, world-chocking, stone-melting, "It's over 9000!", mega Super-Spirit-Fart-of-Instant-Death! simply turns into the sweet smelling fresh scent of Febreeze when aimed at the Ward Dragon Banner.

Hence why we're so pissed.
It's not impossible to beat a Wardbannerstar, but doing so litterly requires a Daemon player to tailor their list in order to combat it and then rely on a hienous amount of luck to pull it off...

No matter what, a game against an Elf player throwing at least 50% of their army under the banner will not be fun in any way shape or form.

O dear, heaven forbid you change your tactics to beat it. No you don't need to tailor, you just need to alter your tactics. Man up and deal with it.

Put your effort into devising said tactics instead of useless whining.


I don't throw my hands up in the air when I see a Lvl4 Death mage across from my ogre army. I deal with it using tactics and knowledge of how Vortexes work.

 Grey Templar wrote:
O dear, heaven forbid you change your tactics to beat it. No you don't need to tailor, you just need to alter your tactics. Man up and deal with it.

Put your effort into devising said tactics instead of useless whining.

Could you name something (That actually works?)

Because otherwise, this is just useless complaining about useless whining

Avoidance is one thing that comes to mind. Not being familiar with the new daemon book I can't offer much beyond that, but I know there are ways of dealing with this. You just need to find them.

Not to be an donkey-cave but not knowing the daemon book and then trying to say that there is something to counter it is not very helpful.

When someone can offer something other than "misdirection and run away from it" i'll be all ears.

I've already written five or so lengthy replies to why misdirection doesn't work against this, because the unit doesn't need to be in combat, it just needs to lock up its points into a vault and then kill whatever is not in the vault point-wise.

So if I lock up 1500 of my 2000 points in this unit i need to kill 600 points of demons to win. I don't need my giant unit to even touch a single demon in combat, and if they are going to throw units at my big unit then all the better to get me to my 600 points to win.

auticus wrote:
Not to be an donkey-cave but not knowing the daemon book and then trying to say that there is something to counter it is not very helpful.

When someone can offer something other than "misdirection and run away from it" i'll be all ears.

I've already written five or so lengthy replies to why misdirection doesn't work against this, because the unit doesn't need to be in combat, it just needs to lock up its points into a vault and then kill whatever is not in the vault point-wise.

So if I lock up 1500 of my 2000 points in this unit i need to kill 600 points of demons to win. I don't need my giant unit to even touch a single demon in combat, and if they are going to throw units at my big unit then all the better to get me to my 600 points to win.

How is that different to any other giant deathstar though?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

auticus wrote:
Not to be an donkey-cave but not knowing the daemon book and then trying to say that there is something to counter it is not very helpful.

When someone can offer something other than "misdirection and run away from it" i'll be all ears.

I've already written five or so lengthy replies to why misdirection doesn't work against this, because the unit doesn't need to be in combat, it just needs to lock up its points into a vault and then kill whatever is not in the vault point-wise.

So if I lock up 1500 of my 2000 points in this unit i need to kill 600 points of demons to win. I don't need my giant unit to even touch a single demon in combat, and if they are going to throw units at my big unit then all the better to get me to my 600 points to win.

How is that different to any other giant deathstar though?

Because most deathstars can be 6'ed to death. High elves avoid the most common ones.

It is very similar to most deathstar tactics, which I find abhorrent. However there are several ways you can deal with a deathstar because a deathstar is typically not going to run around with a 2+ ward save to everything that you throw at it.

Allowing things like deathstars in the first place have killed this game for a lot of people that I know and trying to recruit new players is difficult because of this kind of things.

And now there's a new way to invalidate anohter army introduced which is not something I can really justify or explain away to someone looking into playing.

auticus wrote:
It is very similar to most deathstar tactics, which I find abhorrent. However there are several ways you can deal with a deathstar because a deathstar is typically not going to run around with a 2+ ward save to everything that you throw at it.

Allowing things like deathstars in the first place have killed this game for a lot of people that I know and trying to recruit new players is difficult because of this kind of things.

And now there's a new way to invalidate anohter army introduced which is not something I can really justify or explain away to someone looking into playing.

Eh to be honest, deathstars are just another new thing. There's usually something in Fantasy that's a big thing due to the rules.

I remember when Warhammer used to be called "Herohammer" for example, due to the fact that units were worthless and you spent most of your money on powerful killy HQ's due to how stupid effective they were.

I remember 5th edition too. It drove a lot of people out of the hobby.

auticus wrote:

When someone can offer something other than "misdirection and run away from it" i'll be all ears.

Um, haven't you read? L2p and man-up are the suggestions. Which are super helpful on a strategy forum.

When cheapo marauders were removed, everyone said the sky was falling and WoC were doomed and the worst army ever, people actually said, "hey, maybe you can use one of these other 30 strategies and units."

If the only suggestion for marauder-less WoC was, avoid the enemy, I think they would have room to complain.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Avoidance is one thing that comes to mind. Not being familiar with the new daemon book I can't offer much beyond that, but I know there are ways of dealing with this. You just need to find them.

You havent read the book. You havent read this thread which gives all the information about demons needed for this discussion and you havent read the detailed posts about why the avoidance strategy is fail. Yet you assert there are ways of dealing with this.

Upon reflection of the above facts can you understand why people might not take you seriously?

How do you know there are ways, is it faith in humankind? Is it faith in GW rule writers? I am just curious how you know this.

I've never got over this internet idea that whoever writes a book must have complete and total control over anything he puts in to it. That GW just hands it over and says 'surprise us!'

Ward is responsible for assembling the bits and piecs, for fluff and possibly for overall direction. But there'll be a dozen guys at least throwing in ideas and helping shape the concept for the book, and whatever he puts up in terms of game balance will have to get past Jervis Johnson and the rest of the strategic direction team. I mean, did you think Ward writes a book, gives half the units total immunity to everything and sits back telling everyone how clever he is because his new book is now the biggest selling book, while the GW suits all sit their spinning on their swivel chairs doing coke by the truckload?

Point being, when GW has put out broken stuff... GW has put out broken stuff. When they've put out good books GW put out good books. All this internet nonsense about picking one internet whipping boy and trying to dump on him is silly. They don't farm out major parts of the game to some guy and just hopes he doesn't release something that ruins the whole thing.


As for this item, well I don't know and you don't either. Typically when books have contained broken stuff it has taken months for it to be found and exploited properly. The best Empire lists are only really now getting settled on, and there's every chance we might still find some truly broken nonsense in the Warriors of Chaos and Daemons books. Trying to declare what is brokenly unplayable when the book is just rumours or when its just been released is almost always wrong.

Sure, it's not Ward alone who writes the codex / army book.

But it's kinda weird that it's always Mat Ward writing trash codices / army books or at least ones with terrible internal balance.

I don't think HE have bad internal balance. The external balance is debatable, but that banner is pretty much auto-include. Was looking at Ulthuan and one of their major tactica threads advocates using it with, you guessed it, white lions.

Was mainly referring to Codex: Necrons and Codex: Grey Knights as reference for Mat Ward being a *horribe* codex writer. I don't think we can get a valid verdict on the new HE yet regarding (internal) balance.

I swear to god, if GW uses this as an excuse to have allies taken...