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Those are horrible executioners and black guard are only slightly better. They should have just switched the current models to plastic. The executioner heads would have people laughing their asses off on the field.

Dark Riders look nice, but since I have over 30 converted ones I have no inclination to buy them.

Guessing those ugly assed white guy/things are the warlocks? Really, GW?

I like the fleet master, he looks cool aside from the sword leg, might have to greenstuff a real peg leg if there arent options and hopefully he will be a lord option.

So it looks like my total purchases for DE will be two or three hydras(2 hydras and one of the other things), the fleet master and the book. Nothing else looks decent appearancewise to put it on the table.

Bolt throwers 70 points each and 4 per army! I can write the army lists with put even bothering to buy the book! Hydras and bolt throwers ahoy. Don't know why they bother with black guard and executioners as anybody who is anybody will just plump for dark riders, crossbowmen, bolt throwers and hydras. Same as the last book!

Why do they always OP DE? Why??

 Kanluwen wrote:
I do not really think that the sword peg leg counts as an extra attack, does it?

Maybe it doesn't, but that seemed like the sort of rule GW would write.

Col. Dash wrote:
Those are horrible executioners and black guard are only slightly better. They should have just switched the current models to plastic. The executioner heads would have people laughing their asses off on the field.

Paint the heads metal and it drastically changes the Executioners.

Called it: Pendant is gone, Dagger is nerfed out of use.

On the upside Assassins can take magic items now, so those may be actually useful, and the KB/+1 to Wound poisons could be handy.

Can't Assassins take magic items now?

 Kanluwen wrote:
Can't Assassins take magic items now?

yes. Granted it's only 50 points, but I'm sure there will be some kind of decent combo to work out for one.

Not sure why everyone is down on the Executioners. GW have done fair worse. I have a use for those heads anyway. Quite like the Black Guard too, though as they will no doubt cost £40 for 5 models, I will probably pass

Those warlock things remind me of White Walkers from GoT. Wonder if that was the inspiration.

I would not be surprised to see the Executioners/Black Guard at the same price point as the Shadow Warrior/Sisters of Avelorn kit.

Which still sucks, pricewise.

 Flashman wrote:
Not sure why everyone is down on the Executioners. GW have done fair worse. I have a use for those heads anyway. Quite like the Black Guard too, though as they will no doubt cost £40 for 5 models, I will probably pass

Those warlock things remind me of White Walkers from GoT. Wonder if that was the inspiration.

You wonder? This is GW!

 Kroothawk wrote:

These where promising until I saw the horses heads, yes horses can do that though their teeth aren't exactly that pronounced. And why in the world would you put that on a model! I'm thinking replace the heads with either chaos marauder or chaos chariot horse heads though the chariot heads may be too big.

For some reason I really like the head on the left, it's nice to see that GW is branching out and making some elven heads with character to them. Pretty promising for conversions in the Eldar/Dark Eldar/High Elf/Wood Elf ranges

I'm seeing a Dark Eldar Mandrake conversion being born somewhere.

These are probably my favorite models in the release so far!

I'm pretty impressed with the models being released this go around, there are a few warts on the frog (hydra heads, horse heads, and for some reason I don't understand how the chariot is supposed to move) but the rest of it looks pretty good. The Witches actually look like women, the Kharibdys model makes up for the hydra heads and I REALLY like the beastmasters, despite what has been said about the stairs and the blood strings the Cauldron and Medusa look awesome especially for being plastic kits, the basic troops are much improved over their previous versions (if only HE spearmen got the same treatment), the Black Guard/Executioners look great, besides the horse heads and twin pony tails the Dark Riders look pretty good as well. All in all I'd say this will be a pretty good release

 Kanluwen wrote:
I would not be surprised to see the Executioners/Black Guard at the same price point as the Shadow Warrior/Sisters of Avelorn kit.

Which still sucks, pricewise.

As I said on an earlier post, new DE lists will be bolt thrower/crossbow/dark rider/hydra spam. I'm beginning to agree with the sentiments on other threads that argued that GW always does this with an army book - they make some units great, and other units not worth the plastic they're moulded from. Maybe one day, we'll get some decent rules.

And before anybody says you haven't even seen the new army book yet, I say that 20+ years in the hobby trumps that. I know GW like the snot in my nose!

The more I see of the horses the more I'm starting to think that they are not intended to be generic stolen Ellyrion horses, but rather Ellyrion horses that have been corrupted via Dark Magic.

Still makes the teeth stupid but explains the strange "spikes" on the horses.

Also I have realized that now we're not going to get Raven Heralds for the High Elves. The shields that the Dark Riders have are emblazoned with ravens.

There are a few things that come to mind about this release and peoples' reactions to it that I think are worth considering:

1) This is a total revamp of the army's imagery. It's very apparent where GW has totally abandoned Fitzpatrick's work on the dark elves to return to the imagery of the race from warhammer's early days. The emblems on the shields and the executioner's masks are all indicative of that shift. I wouldn't begin to suggest that people must like this move, but when considering the executioner's masks, I think one needs to consider it.

2) This is all plastic. That is absolutely huge. There are complaints about the sword peg-leg and the horses' teeth. But because it's plastic it is so easily remedied!

3) GW's approach to designing units is to be out there. The dark elf chariot, the peg-leg, the horses' teeth, the stair case cauldron, etc., are all things that make the dark elves look definitively different than other races' models (particularly the high elves, which are the most obvious comparison). This differentiates them from competitors (for good and bad) and makes each army absolutely unique. It's no longer possible to say the dark elves are just high elves with spikes!

I would absolutely love to start a new army with these models. That they're all plastic and that there's a standard across them both make having a unified army appearance much easier. But GW have priced themselves out of my wallet!

 Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:
I don't understand how the chariot is supposed to move

It's a unicycle. The idea is cool as far as I'm concerned, even if it would probably drive worse than a regular chariot (and those things were not good war machines, ever).

Overall, I am impressed with the new look, and the fact that they have re-done the entire line...(I am still waiting on some skaven units that need plastics/redesigns...gutter/night runners, globadiers, plague monks, assassins, warmachines, jezzails, etc.). The prices are what is keeping me from starting an army with this release...

However, I have been collecting representative models for the random monster tables in the Warhammer Quest roleplay book for the past 10 years or so...so eventually I will be getting some of these...thankfully, I will only need about a dozen each of the witches, black guard, spearmen/crossbowmen, and a hydra. After this release, I think we will have plastic models for everything on those lists, save a few monsters and the Skaven models mentioned above...and Chaos Dwarfs. Its not likely that Chaos Dwarfs will ever get plastic models from GW, so I'm stuck with grabbing the FW ones...not bad looking...and now, not that much more expensive than the GW models (sadly). We just need them to make some hobgoblins >


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I forgot to comment...is it just me, or did they make the spearmen/crossbowmen's hands WAY too big? I thought we got the proportion problems sorted out already....this is almost as bad as the giant hands on the old 'monkey' skaven, or the 6th ed. plastic night goblins!

The hands are big, but not unbelievably so. Really long fingers though.

OK, now I see the problem with the horses. Yeah its an issue. Dark Rider horses are supposed to be beautiful specimens of the horses, not corrupted bad things. The beautiful part is supposed to be similar in nature to all of DE, beautiful but cruel and deadly. Leave the corruption and weird nastiness to chaos and undead.

Wow, these are some really ugly miniatures.

IMHO, the Executioners and new Warriors (whatever their new names are) are not BAD per se, but rather disappointing. It's like whoever did them is not the same person who did the Corsairs and Cold One cavalry, which is a shame cause those kits are ace. The new Warriors are certainly an improvement over the old, but they don't rise to the level of design and sculpting quality as the Corsairs. I don't know why GW doesn't have their top designers/sculptors doing ALL of their stuff. Like, why even bother with anyone but Jes Goodwin for 40k? (now that Diaz, the closest in ability, is gone). If they had the Corsair designer do the new Warriors and Executioners, I'd have been very hard pressed not to buy them. And I don't play Fantasy at all.

-C6

 jojo_monkey_boy wrote:
There are a few things that come to mind about this release and peoples' reactions to it that I think are worth considering:

1) This is a total revamp of the army's imagery. It's very apparent where GW has totally abandoned Fitzpatrick's work on the dark elves to return to the imagery of the race from warhammer's early days. The emblems on the shields and the executioner's masks are all indicative of that shift. I wouldn't begin to suggest that people must like this move, but when considering the executioner's masks, I think one needs to consider it.

2) This is all plastic. That is absolutely huge. There are complaints about the sword peg-leg and the horses' teeth. But because it's plastic it is so easily remedied!

3) GW's approach to designing units is to be out there. The dark elf chariot, the peg-leg, the horses' teeth, the stair case cauldron, etc., are all things that make the dark elves look definitively different than other races' models (particularly the high elves, which are the most obvious comparison). This differentiates them from competitors (for good and bad) and makes each army absolutely unique. It's no longer possible to say the dark elves are just high elves with spikes!

I would absolutely love to start a new army with these models. That they're all plastic and that there's a standard across them both make having a unified army appearance much easier. But GW have priced themselves out of my wallet!

I agree with a lot of this, but I think the reason for the "out there" designs is to make their IP more protectable. They're realized that they can't protect a generic "evil elf" at all...

That said, I really like the wave 2 models more than wave 1! A lot of these look quite good.

TBD wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:


Is there any news on price? If the new Black Guard are pretty expensive, I'll stock up on the current ones, but if they're going to be good value for money, I may just wait.

Since it is a dual kit I expect it to be priced like the Witch Elves.

That's what I fear.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:Bolt throwers 70 points each and 4 per army! I can write the army lists with put even bothering to buy the book! Hydras and bolt throwers ahoy. Don't know why they bother with black guard and executioners as anybody who is anybody will just plump for dark riders, crossbowmen, bolt throwers and hydras. Same as the last book!

Why do they always OP DE? Why??

Oh yeah, like those really OP 70 point Bolt Throwers that HE have too. We haven't seen Hydra's points value and its regeneration has been nerfed slightly, other stuff about it may have been too. Crossbowmen have gone up two points for no apparent change, except for the army-wide benefits all the other units get.

I like the look of the new rules though, can't wait until Saturday!

I dunno.... the Hydra only appears to be 10 points more expensive than the current one with a more consistent Breath Weapon. It's regeneration is no longer comparable to a Feel No Pain save and it's instead more like Tyranid's regeneration shenanigans but better. Could be useful.

Hydra is more resilient against small fire, but considerably less resilient against war machines and in combat. As a beastmen player, I fear the hydra much less than I did before. I assume it lost hatred too. Probably a pretty balanced monster for the points.

RXB are 2 pts more, which probably makes them balanced. They were too cheap in the previous edition (along with most everything in the armybook).

 Aerethan wrote:
Called it: Pendant is gone, Dagger is nerfed out of use.

On the upside Assassins can take magic items now, so those may be actually useful, and the KB/+1 to Wound poisons could be handy.

I think you are too use to the OP nature of the original dagger to see that it is still a damn good deal for its points. You are clearly lacking in your vision with the potential with new book. You will still see it in most DE lists on the level 4. Especially now that they have access to Life. Who cares if troops die, you grow them back. You will see a many life tricks combined with the new monsters to help keep them alive. Heck, Life will be brutal with WE/Cauldron and Exc/Cauldron death stars.

One note on the DE bolt throwers, on Warseer they are claiming the DE ones lost the multi-shot option.

It's like people complaining that the Book of Hoeth got nerfed out of use...

As much as I used it, I totally get why the Pendant was nerfed. It needed it. Bad. Especially for 35 points.

I never ran super magic heavy lists, so the Dagger nerf doesn't hurt me as badly, so a wash there. But I like the Life option on my mages...THAT is good times.

Those warlocks are perfect to make driders, if you combine them with the O&G spider. Plus, this way youll be able to make a unit and dark rider and warlock with the same kit (just have to buy 5 spider in a bits store).

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 TBD wrote:
Maybe the chariot has a special catapult attack that launches the riders at the enemy as soon as they hit a bump in the road.

I hope so, because if that chariot hits a pothole, the riders will be getting launched anyway!

To be fair, any chariot without a spring suspension would be very, very uncomfortable in rough terrain, and if moving at any speed, would pretty much disintegrate if hitting a pothole. It's why Roman chariot racing was such a bloodsport.

 His Master's Voice wrote:

 Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:
I don't understand how the chariot is supposed to move

It's a unicycle. The idea is cool as far as I'm concerned, even if it would probably drive worse than a regular chariot (and those things were not good war machines, ever).

OH ok that makes sense now, still doesn't make sense from a logic standpoint but it's a fantasy game so we'll call it good.