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Old player thinking about it..viable?

Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 10:16 pm
by Quinn
There may have been a ton of posts like this..don't know. I'm an old time DE player that totally ditched WH during 8th edition. The 'new' GW and the ITC have me interested in actually trying out AOS. Are the DEs viable or should I wait until they get their own updated battle tome? Not even sure I know the right terms but trying to catch up. I'm competitive, having won a few GTS and Ard Boyz back in the day, so need to know if the investment of time is worth it. Or stick to 40K for awhile?

Re: Old player thinking about it..viable?

Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2016 10:29 pm
by Quinn
Let me ask specifically, which builds are working? I sold my old DEs so going with a blank palette here and don't really care what I have to buy or paint.

Re: Old player thinking about it..viable?

Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2016 3:32 pm
by Calisson
Welcome back - and happy new year.

AoS have no DE as a faction on its own. It has become 5 sub-factions from the many more belonging to the Order.
Now, if you go DE for aesthetics coherence, then several players have found them competitive, if I am not mistaken (I have only played a couple of games myself).

Re: Old player thinking about it..viable?

Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 7:12 am
by Shadowspite
Factions are irrelevant for most purposes. You can make a legal Matched Play (i.e. the 'competitive' / points-limit way of playing AoS) army that looks like a WHFB DE army, even though the units might be from half a dozen separate factions. The only exception is harpies, which are now Chaos-aligned so you cannot use them alongside the Order-aligned DE in Matched Play.

I don't play competitive/tournament style games myself, but AFAIK DE are reasonably competitive. No worse than they've been in previous editions, anyway.

It is rumoured that 'Aelves' will end up being its own faction eventually, with its own set of Allegiance Abilities, Artefacts, etc. For now, DE armies use the 'Order' allegiance rules.

Re: Old player thinking about it..viable?

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 9:37 pm
by Quinn
Thanks for the replies. I'm basically starting from scratch again Army wise, so I think I will just grab the stuff I want to paint up and that was effective before for me and see what happens. Looks like most of the models are new (compared to when I last played a lot in 7th Ed) so should be fun to build a new force.

Re: Old player thinking about it..viable?

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2017 9:48 am
by Shadowspite
Quinn wrote:I think I will just grab the stuff I want to paint up and that was effective before for me and see what happens.

That's probably the best approach, and the one AoS is geared towards really. As a ruleset, it wasn't really designed with hardcore competitive tournament play as a goal. It does work for that (with the General's Handbook), but the original point of the AoS ruleset was just to give a loose framework for people to have some fun playing with whatever miniatures they liked the look of.

So, if there are any non-DE (but still Order-aligned) models you really like the look of or want to try painting, feel free to include them in your army alongside your DEs. That's fully game-legal now, without any cumbersome 'allies' rules. Flavour to taste (maybe they're slaves, or mercenaries, or Sigmar has sent them to keep an eye on your sorceress in case she's secretly a Slaanesh-worshipper). The main strength of AoS is its openness, so you might as well make the most of it.

Tactics-wise, my only real advice with fielding DEs is to never take Witch Aelves unless you support them with a Cauldron. Shooting is very strong in AoS and Witches can't ever get cover saves and can't be protected with spells. The Cauldron is the only way you have of stopping them from getting shot to pieces before they can reach the enemy.