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So I was reading a few army lists with the new high elves and saw people talking about the rerolls.

I just got my book today and I see they've dropped Speed of Asuryan for a straight up ASF army wide.

Speed of Asuryan allowed High Elves to strike first with great weapons, but that's gone.

Am I missing something somewhere or have those that posted about rerolls been mistaken. It looks to me that white lions, Phoenix guard and sword masters now strike at I value with no rerolls.

If you have ASF with I >= your enemy you can reroll. That's in the BRB rules.

DukeRustfield wrote:
If you have ASF with I >= your enemy you can reroll. That's in the BRB rules.

Not if you're also wielding great weapons, which White Lions, Swordmasters and Phoenix Guard have.

@Lehnsherr: Those units will strike at I with no re-rolls as you mentioned, but remember they also have another rule that lets them fight with an additional rank.

Phoenix Guard have halberds, not Great Weapons. They still have ASF.

White Lions and Swordmasters just strike at Initiative now. ASF and ASL cancel each other out, as per the BRB.

Correct PG use halberds so still use ASF

Also the units that have essentially lost ASF have gained attacks in an extra rank and dropped in points...

There are ways to gain the ability to re-roll, but by default WL's and SM's will not be able to anymore. They did get a reduction in points and will fight in extra ranks though, so it isn't a complete loss.

Think of them as a normal unit that is WS5-6, S5-6, I5, 1-2 attacks each, and fights in 3 ranks by default. Yeah, not exactly normal now is it?

They are, in fact, very similar to Warriors of Chaos, except for being cheaper and being slightly less tough, lacking the armour and the basic nobility of spirit possessed by the men of the North; like a twisted, pointy eared husk of Warrior Core, which happen to fight in an extra rank.

You still get the 'oh crap' effect, even without the rerolls. I'm running my SM in a 7 wide 3 deep formation. That's a whole lot of dice hitting at S5. The extra rank makes for a bigger advantage than the rerolls in my book. Only issue will be if I have to face something that hits me first, which is rare anyway.

HEs now have regular ASF instead of their special ASF that ignored Great Weapons.

Striking at Inititive with GWs is still pretty darn nice, and you gained another rank of attacks to boot.

I wasn't complaining about the loss of rerolls. Striking at I with a great weapon is pretty sweet, and the extra attacks due to martial prowress are also nice, I just saw people talking about rerolls and it confused me.

Also the PG use halberds as mentioned above so they keep rerolls. It's gonna be hard deciding between PG and WL for me.

Thanks for the clarifications all.

Whitelions are still my go to - decent save versus shooting, and they put out a decent amount of high S attacks. You can gain rerolls from elsewhere if you need as well.

 Sir Blayse wrote:
You still get the 'oh crap' effect, even without the rerolls. I'm running my SM in a 7 wide 3 deep formation. That's a whole lot of dice hitting at S5. The extra rank makes for a bigger advantage than the rerolls in my book. Only issue will be if I have to face something that hits me first, which is rare anyway.

For Sword Masters the extra rank isn't as valuable as the rerolls, as they don't get their full attacks from the extra ranks. It also means that MSU Sword Masters, a popular use for them in the old book, is worse off. Big hordes of White Lions are better than before, but smaller units are worse, even with the reduced cost.

Phoenix Guard, on the other hand, are now even better than before, which makes me happy, as they're my preferred elite infantry anyway.

White Lions are worse off.
Before, 30 attacks hitting on 3's with re-rolls was 26.66 hits for 15 points a model (450 points).
Now you get another rank: 40 attacks hitting on 3's (no re-rolls) is 26.66 hits for 13 points a model (520 points).

So you pay more for the cost per hit.
Where you do gain an advantage is that you are paying less per model in a stubborn block. Net effect is gain in unit staying power/point in exchange for hitting power/point.

Gets worse against harder to hit things too.
Nurgle Warriors I think get hit on 5s by WL

30 rerollable = 16.66
40 no-rerolls = 13.33


Automatically Appended Next Post:
They are dashed cheap though...

13 str6 hits at I5 is still nothing to sneeze at.

Absolutely, would probably do 8 wounds. Which is exactly the same number as I would expect to return, meaning that they would probably win by ranks. Or it might come down to overkills in challenge. Pretty close anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A block of 50 spears may be more worrying, since they would hit me first and get both the old bonus and the new...

A horde of 50 spears is a easy target for warmachine and magic like dweller.
that's a huge basket of egg!

Consider a unit of 21 White Lions, in 3 ranks of 7.

Used to be they'd attack first. That was 14 attacks, and hitting on 3+ with re-rolls would average about 12.5 hits. That was, as we all learned, a lot of Str 6 hits.

Now they will still attack first, because they're still crazy high initiative, and they're attacking with 21 attacks. Hitting on 3+, they're going to score 14 hits on average... it's gone up.

Now, admittedly that number dwindles as soon as you start chipping in to the third rank, not the second rank as was the case previously (and so the White Lion horde has taken a hit because it loses effectiveness once you start taking models from the fourth rank).

Moral of the story is you still do not want to screw with these guys while they've got extra ranks. Because if you do, if anything they're more lethal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

HawaiiMatt wrote:
White Lions are worse off.
Before, 30 attacks hitting on 3's with re-rolls was 26.66 hits for 15 points a model (450 points).
Now you get another rank: 40 attacks hitting on 3's (no re-rolls) is 26.66 hits for 13 points a model (520 points).

So you pay more for the cost per hit.

You pay more per hit in Horde. You are assuming that White Lions are to be taken in Horde exactly as they were before. Instead do the numbers and note that they're actually cheaper per hit in non-horde.

It may be that, like in the previous book with Swordmasters, White Lions might now be taken in smaller units. Like Swordmasters were taken in 2 ranks of 7 in the last book, we might now see White Lions taken in 3 ranks of 7. Put them on the flank. They're Str 6 so they'll make a horrific mess of the high toughness monsters and high armour cavalry that's often used on flanks, and when they make a flanking charge of their own it'll add massively to their sides kill total.

I'm not sure what role this leaves Swordmasters, though.

Swordmasters seem to be intended to be taken in small almost throwaway units 7 wide that bring a lot of S5 attacks for their cost. White Lions seem intended to be horded.

Phoenix Guard gained an extra rank of attacks and lost nothing. They look pretty good to me.

I think White Lions are now better as those cheap throw away units due to the 3+ save against shooting. It helps them more the sort of Bs based shooting they'll attract. Whilst the S6 will help more than the extra attack against big Monsters and 1+ save Cav.

You can also Horde White Lions but for that I feel you'd want BotWD and Alarielle for all the ward save shenanigans.

Swordmasters don't really seem to have a role over the White Lions in this book.

Well their base 6+ ward from shooting could be useful, given the HM lore attribute, however again youre sinking lots of points into them to make the most of it, when you could just do something similar with PG...

The white Lions have got better against poor troops and worse against decent troops. PG have got better against everyone. No idea why you would take swordmasters, but don't have the HE book to check everything.

Niteware wrote:
The white Lions have got better against poor troops and worse against decent troops. PG have got better against everyone. No idea why you would take swordmasters, but don't have the HE book to check everything.

Why take sword masters?
WS6. Since you lost re-rolls, hitting your opponents elite units on 3's is still good.
And more attacks than WL.
The 2nd best reason to take swordmasters is because you might have to fight white lions. Point for point, Sword Masters out kill Whitelions 2:1.
The Best reason to take Sword Masters is that they are dirt cheap plastics.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Niteware wrote:
The white Lions have got better against poor troops and worse against decent troops. PG have got better against everyone. No idea why you would take swordmasters, but don't have the HE book to check everything.

Why take sword masters?
WS6. Since you lost re-rolls, hitting your opponents elite units on 3's is still good.
And more attacks than WL.
The 2nd best reason to take swordmasters is because you might have to fight white lions. Point for point, Sword Masters out kill Whitelions 2:1.
The Best reason to take Sword Masters is that they are dirt cheap plastics.

-Matt

Cheers As I say, haven't got hold of the book yet. Hitting my Chosen on 4s is unpleasant - I like them to feel more defensible than that.

I miss my 3+ ward save Chosen