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I've been looking over the forums and not seeing any mentions of Aelves bringing home any victories in tournaments and organized events. Am I missing something or are they really just completely under classed and not winning?

There are a handful of specific armies/builds that are downright broken enough to consistently find their way to the top. Everything outside of that is more or less screwed out, and it includes most of the options. Aelves are in this boat, along with Dwarves, most of non-TK undead, Grots, Orruks... You get the idea.

Rob from warhammer TV won the alliance tournament with an army built on Glade Guard, Kurnoth Hunters, Hurricanums and Gryph-hounds.

That's the only elf unit in a winning list I can currently think of.

 Bottle wrote:
Rob from warhammer TV won the alliance tournament with an army built on Glade Guard, Kurnoth Hunters, Hurricanums and Gryph-hounds.

That's the only elf unit in a winning list I can currently think of.

Yep the infamous (and in my opinion overrated) gladeguard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
There are a handful of specific armies/builds that are downright broken enough to consistently find their way to the top. Everything outside of that is more or less screwed out, and it includes most of the options. Aelves are in this boat, along with Dwarves, most of non-TK undead, Grots, Orruks... You get the idea.

figured as much

I'm not sure if you can call glade guard overrated when they've been in a tournament winning list that tabled every opponent. :-)

AoS just isn't balanced well enough to be a tournament viable game. The biggest issue is that GW doesn't regularly issue FAQs/Erratas to deal with severe power imbalances. In effect, the GHB came out, the tournament meta settled and now it's going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. New releases might change things, but might not.

 Kriswall wrote:
AoS just isn't balanced well enough to be a tournament viable game. The biggest issue is that GW doesn't regularly issue FAQs/Erratas to deal with severe power imbalances. In effect, the GHB came out, the tournament meta settled and now it's going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. New releases might change things, but might not.

1) It's way too early to say sweeping things like that. How many TGH tournaments have there been? Hint: not enough to whinge about balance yet. There are groups saying all the following are too powerful: Shooting spam, Deep Strike spam, Blobs, Behemoth Spam, MW spam, MSU lists, and Wizard builds for Sylvaneth. Even if those are all on the strong side, that's a pretty incredible amount of variance in viable lists.

2) FAQs/Erratas for TGH literally came out the day it released to address feedback from leaks/in store copies. If that's not an indication of regularity I don't know what is. It's been just over 3 months, I honestly wouldn't want them to Errata too much in that time. People coming in for the first time with TGH haven't even finished building their armies. Changing things at this point would be 100% premature, don't be impatient.

3) The "forseeable future" is less than a year at the longest. GW said they plan to release a new TGH every year with updated points, rules, and missions. That's a pretty good turnaround for a game like this. Not as fast as MTG's releases, obviously, but not bad at all. Not to mention they can update warscrolls at any time and FAQ/Errata the base rules.


tl;dr - calm down with the fearmongering and doomsaying. This part of Dakka has gotten too fething whiney in the recent weeks.


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EBWOP: as to the topic at hand: like I said, it's too early to worry about tournament winning lists. Elves have decent tools, but not having been updated or touched since release hurts them a bit. I think it's hard for one to build a straight all Elf build, but I would not be surprised if you could. They have a lot of fast stuff and tricks up their sleeves. They also have some pretty good Behemoths in various Dragons.

I would assume most Elf builds will incorporate some other Order elements until they get a new Battletome.

I have to wonder if people naming which armies are broken/underpowered follow the tournament scene much, at least the one in Europe with all the podcasts etc, where it's quite vibrant. The comments don't mesh with that community's.

The complaints have gone through whatever the newest release is. Stormcast are overpowered. Sylvaneth is overpowered. Beast claw is overpowered. Etc. One strange thing I see here but not anywhere else is complaints that Khorne Bloodbound are weak, when Russ of Facehammer for example has done very well with them and explained how to use that army.

I think any "legacy" kind of army is at a disadvantage just due to the fact it's not quite built for AoS, more shoehorned in, though TK have apparently been good.

coldgaming wrote:
I have to wonder if people naming which armies are broken/underpowered follow the tournament scene much, at least the one in Europe with all the podcasts etc, where it's quite vibrant. The comments don't mesh with that community's.

The complaints have gone through whatever the newest release is. Stormcast are overpowered. Sylvaneth is overpowered. Beast claw is overpowered. Etc. One strange thing I see here but not anywhere else is complaints that Khorne Bloodbound are weak, when Russ of Facehammer for example has done very well with them and explained how to use that army.

I think any "legacy" kind of army is at a disadvantage just due to the fact it's not quite built for AoS, more shoehorned in, though TK have apparently been good.

Complaints of a new army being OP can usually be translated to "I haven't yet figured out how to counter this army". With only a few outliers (Skyrefire, Skyborne, etc.), the game is pretty competitive.

I think some people make claims that army X or strategy Y is op when that isn't really true. What is true is that specific builds with specific armies are very much op. Skryrefyre is extremely op, but the Skryre subfaction and even the battalion aren't too bad outside of that very specific context. However, to say 'its too early to complain about balance' is to ignore a very real problem. Yes, the meta may not be set just yet, but he reality is that a tournament-quality army is miles above an average one in effectiveness, and there is a large portion of models that simply don't fit into a tournament list. An all-Aelf army has little to no chance against Kunnin' Rukk, Skryrefyre, Skybourne Slayers, etc.

lots of talk so far, great stuff. Still not hearing any examples of Aelves taking home the win in any competitive setting. Please chime in with examples if they exist.

You might want to hold on before you dismiss them completely. There have only been 5 tournaments in the UK since the GHB dropped and elf units were used to win one (mentioned above).

There might be more to come, I personally doubt it will be a pure elf list. But for an Order army there has got to be some good combinations involving Executioners and Hurricanums (as one possibility).

what is skryrefire? I am thinking it is from the skaven section.

 Necro wrote:
what is skryrefire? I am thinking it is from the skaven section.

It's a specific Clan Skyre list based off of the Clan Skyre warscroll battalion. It basically allows the player to null deploy, then drop dozens of mortal wound a few inches from their target. It's one of the current cheese (heh!) lists in the game right now from what I've been reading on the forum.

The battalion is called Gautfyre Scorch. Engineer, 1+ units of Stormfiends, 1+ units of Warpfire teams, 1+ units of Warpgrinder teams. The whole battalion can go into Celestial Realm with the Warpgrinder team, coming up near opponents. Because the Stormfiends and Warpfire teams have multiple D3 Mortal Wound weapons, they erase most units that don't have Mortal Wound defense.

You can fit two in a 2000 point list. It's mean and is truly one of the strongest lists in the game. Not gamebreaking, but extremely strong. I believe many tournaments will probably institute a "no duplicate battalion" rule if it becomes too bad, but honestly that will wait til after more tournaments happen.

Its just one battalion, actually. The battalion itself is modular and composed of multiple 'enginecovens' of which Gautfyre Scorch is one option. The 'standard' list afaik is Skryre Battalion, Arch-Warlock, Warlock Engineer x2, Warpfiends x3, Warp-Grinders x2, and Warpfire Throwers x6. Its a rough average of 55 mortal wounds in a single shooting phase. Gryph-Hounds exist as a hard counter, though.

But for an Order army there has got to be some good combinations involving Executioners and Hurricanums (as one possibility).

One of several strong options I am surprised we have not seen. Others being vortex cheese, and forge brethren abuse, off the top of my head.

Are these Celestial Hurricanum lists stacking multiple copies of the buff? My impression was that a unit can only benefit from one Hurricanum at a time.

swarmofseals wrote:
Are these Celestial Hurricanum lists stacking multiple copies of the buff? My impression was that a unit can only benefit from one Hurricanum at a time.

Yeah, but two of them can cover a wide area and put out more MWs.

Requizen wrote:

swarmofseals wrote:
Are these Celestial Hurricanum lists stacking multiple copies of the buff? My impression was that a unit can only benefit from one Hurricanum at a time.

Yeah, but two of them can cover a wide area and put out more MWs.

So what I'm getting here is that for aelves to be competitive they need to bring the ugly lazer bus from Empire? Forget it, that's horrible.

Hopefully Aelves will get a tome soon (but I doubt it...) and have some distinct flavor.

buffalozap wrote:

Requizen wrote:

swarmofseals wrote:
Are these Celestial Hurricanum lists stacking multiple copies of the buff? My impression was that a unit can only benefit from one Hurricanum at a time.

Yeah, but two of them can cover a wide area and put out more MWs.

So what I'm getting here is that for aelves to be competitive they need to bring the ugly lazer bus from Empire? Forget it, that's horrible.

What you're missing however is the lynchpin unit of that force:
Gryph-Hounds

If the opponent has any non-standard deployment methods, then that entire army if placed correctly with Gryph-Hounds would get to make a freebie shooting attack.

Yeah Gryph Hounds are fantastic in any Order army with shooting. You stop worrying about Skyborne and Gautfyre at least a bit.

Phoenix faction. Yup, they wreck face, then stomp and urinate on face, then spit gracefully upon said face.

 VeteranNoob wrote:
Phoenix faction. Yup, they wreck face, then stomp and urinate on face, then spit gracefully upon said face.

Awesome can you point me to some tournament or organized events or battle reports as examples of Aelves winning? On paper the Phoenix council looks good, but is it actually being used successfully?

buffalozap wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:
Phoenix faction. Yup, they wreck face, then stomp and urinate on face, then spit gracefully upon said face.

Awesome can you point me to some tournament or organized events or battle reports as examples of Aelves winning? On paper the Phoenix council looks good, but is it actually being used successfully?

Not a published result only personal experience.

 VeteranNoob wrote:

buffalozap wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:
Phoenix faction. Yup, they wreck face, then stomp and urinate on face, then spit gracefully upon said face.

Awesome can you point me to some tournament or organized events or battle reports as examples of Aelves winning? On paper the Phoenix council looks good, but is it actually being used successfully?

Not a published result only personal experience.

Interesting, Not that I don't necessarily think you are being honest, but I am looking for evidence and anecdotes don't fall into that category.

Anecdote is evidence! You might consider it less reliable etc, but it is never the less evidence.

Equally the tourney that had 4 people turn up, 3 of which were children with the random selections of models they happen to own and the 4th was some ultra competitive guy is not exactly great evidence of anything.

buffalozap wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:

buffalozap wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:
Phoenix faction. Yup, they wreck face, then stomp and urinate on face, then spit gracefully upon said face.

Awesome can you point me to some tournament or organized events or battle reports as examples of Aelves winning? On paper the Phoenix council looks good, but is it actually being used successfully?

Not a published result only personal experience.

Interesting, Not that I don't necessarily think you are being honest, but I am looking for evidence and anecdotes don't fall into that category.

There haven't been enough tournaments for the type of data you're after. Anecdotal evidence is about as good as you'll get atm.

You can go here to see upcoming AoS ITC events and then ask the TOs what the results were like, but that's kind of on a case-by-case basis. LVO is in February and will have the biggest AoS event yet, so you can check out the results then or look around for what people are planning on bringing.

From the games I've experienced against the Phoenix Guard (it was an entire army) was that they can take a beating, but not really do much in return. Also, they are quite expensive points wise too (200 for 10 IIRC), so you won't be seeing too many Phoenixes, despite being the closest thing to a brick wall available to the Aelves.

buffalozap wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:

buffalozap wrote:

 VeteranNoob wrote:
Phoenix faction. Yup, they wreck face, then stomp and urinate on face, then spit gracefully upon said face.

Awesome can you point me to some tournament or organized events or battle reports as examples of Aelves winning? On paper the Phoenix council looks good, but is it actually being used successfully?

Not a published result only personal experience.

Interesting, Not that I don't necessarily think you are being honest, but I am looking for evidence and anecdotes don't fall into that category.

Yeah, sorry I can't help you in that fashion. If you are strictly looking for published tourneys not sure where to direct you.