Druchii.net

All,

after a break when GW blew up 8th, I'm slowly finding my way back to this wonderfull game. So I checked the rules, had some games with my brother, but I seem to miss the general idea on de Dread Elves in 9th...

In 8th I used to play evasion lists; lots of dark raiders, characters on steeds or pegasi. Or a more combat-oriented list with hordes of executioners and witch elves, backed with the shrines.

In 9th however, nearly everything in the book has gone up in points, got deleted, or got nerfed. Lists as I used to build in 8th are no longer possible. I tried an evasion list to some but no convincing succes, tried a combat list but got butchered, magic-focus doesn't seem to pay off anymore,...

so I wondered: what is the general idea of the dark elves? Are we still the mobile, hard-hitting but o-so-fragile army? What direction should I be looking?

Great to have you back!

Many old builds have gone, but many new have taken their place! They took away the broken things such as Witch Elves + COB, Super Armoured Peg Masters, 4 RBT etc. But we have been given a lot in return (in my opinion) such as much cooler manticore characters, two cults, improved assassins etc.

We have also become more diverse, hopefully they won't be two standard powerful builds like in 8th (evasive or two tower) but countless powerful builds in the 9th age.

If you like to play evasive and want to do it again in 9th age I really recommend trying a flying monster mash! I had one dragonlord, supreme oracle on manticore and bsb on manticore, lots of dark riders with some shades, RBT and hydra's, a lot of fun and succesful games!

But are also given a lot of incentive to go MSU because of the cheap costs. If you like to try out some new infantry, look at the Yema Dancers, they were so underestimated in 8th age that they have become extremely cheap and more powerful than before (I think even OP). What about T4 cold done knights

We are still hard hitting glass cannon who needs to strike first or die, we are still great shooters, we have still awesome monsters, we still have one of the best elite infantry of the game and we are still able to build some of the strongest evasive lists there are. So I would say we remained the same.

But we have to become more tactical again, cohesion and careful planning, flank attacks etc.

So again, although we have changed, I think we have changed back into the right direction while our fluff develops away from Games Workshop but also promises a lot of cool new stuff (roman, corsair, sexy females, ninja)!

Look forward to a small to moderate power boost soon. The DE performed VERY poorly at the ETC.

And by soon we mean 'november' apparently.

Also, until they actually release the fluff, it's hard to evaluate what the general idea is. Because every time we try to pin it down, someone says 'you haven't seen what the fluff team has written yet', which is all sorts of obnoxious.

Amen, brother!

That's become the single worst thing about 9th Age thus far. The whole 'supersecretbutit'sgoingtobefantastic' fluff.

Although taking the most flexible 8E army and turning it into deathstar central (either Tower Guard or Raptor Knights + characters + altar) - and even then it underperforms compared to other armies - comes a close second.

Yeah, winning with DE can be done. Like 12-8 or 13-7. Losses tend to be between 4-16 and 0-20...

It is being discussed these days.
In November, there will be some significant adjustments, but not yet the big thing.
I can tell you that DE is one of the AB under scrutiny, and it will be taken care of sooner than later.

The idea with DE will be to remain the aggressive Elves, when SE are more evasive and HE more defensive.
The issue is to find the appropriate balance for that, and it is hard.

Not to say that it will be impossible to play evasive DE, just that it will not be optimized for that (read sub-par compared to SE in this role).

I just miss being able to take DE and do ANYTHING. MSU, Big blocks of whatever, gun/magicline, avoidance/shooting, just about anything worked with DE.

Well, except 'take a bigger hammer and walk straight up the middle'. You'd get your head handed to you if you weren't careful with maneuvering with any DE army. They're not Chaos Warriors, after all!

Vulcan wrote:I just miss being able to take DE and do ANYTHING. MSU, Big blocks of whatever, gun/magicline, avoidance/shooting, just about anything worked with DE.

Well, except 'take a bigger hammer and walk straight up the middle'. You'd get your head handed to you if you weren't careful with maneuvering with any DE army. They're not Chaos Warriors, after all!

big witch elf unit with cauldron of blood was a nasty hammer! Those poison attaks ripped through anything.
....but you still had to watch out for frenzy baiting.


Dont expect too many changes. From what ive seen their data collection isnt large enough to warrant sweeping changes to the rosters. You might get a points increase or decrease here and there thats about it.

Given DE's less-than-stellar performance at ETC that had better be a point decrease here and there. The LAST thing the book needs is price INCREASES.

Has been analysed.
DE underperform at team tournaments, probably because of no clear role compared to other armies.
However, DE performs satisfactorily at single tournaments, where they show up as often as most armies and get just average results with a normal Gaussian bell.
The conclusion is that there is not really a problem of external balance (power level of most powerful combos is adequate) but there is an acute problem of internal balance (only a few combos are powerful).

With V1.2, I expect to see more pts decrease than pts increase. But that will not solve yet the internal balance.
This is the very reason why DE will be addressed in the first batch of AB overhaul in the spring 2017.
New DE will be released around early April.

Bear in mind, that means the 'power builds' are actually what is balanced externally and should not be nerfed.

That includes the Altar. Yes, it is pretty much an auto-include. But since the Altar is part of what MAKES the power builds balanced, nerfing it nerfs the power builds back into sub-standard performance. So nerfs to the Altar would have to be balanced by making units viable WITHOUT it. (And since we pay an extra 3ppm for POTENTIAL Altar benefits even if we don't take an Altar, that's a good place to start the balancing at. After all, EoS doesn't pay an extra 9ppm because of the potential benefits of their THREE buffwagons...)

That also means everything ELSE in the book is not just out of balance INTERNALLY, it's out of balance EXTERNALLY as well and need buffs to be brought up INTO balance.

Vulcan wrote:Bear in mind, that means the 'power builds' are actually what is balanced externally and should not be nerfed.

That includes the Altar. Yes, it is pretty much an auto-include. But since the Altar is part of what MAKES the power builds balanced, nerfing it nerfs the power builds back into sub-standard performance. So nerfs to the Altar would have to be balanced by making units viable WITHOUT it. (And since we pay an extra 3ppm for POTENTIAL Altar benefits even if we don't take an Altar, that's a good place to start the balancing at. After all, EoS doesn't pay an extra 9ppm because of the potential benefits of their THREE buffwagons...)

That also means everything ELSE in the book is not just out of balance INTERNALLY, it's out of balance EXTERNALLY as well and need buffs to be brought up INTO balance.

That would be my understanding of the intention.
For example, if Altar + 25 Execs works today, and each Exec gets -2 ppm and Altar +50 pts, this changes nothing for that specific build, but helps Execs MSU without Altar.
I am not saying that this will be done, I am not even suggesting it (I am not part of the revision team), but investigate, in case they made this kind of decision, it should be in the right direction, wouldn't it be?

Make that "Tower Guard" and -3/+75 and you might be onto something.

Executioners need a bit more love than Tower Guard to bring them into balance. Along with nearly everything else...

Don't know first-hand, but I've read that what works for DE is {TG/Ex/DK} death star with Altar.

Losing the +1 to hit from Lightning Reflexes makes Executioners unreliable in damage-producing, especially against elite units. Losing Killer Instincts only compounds the problem. Besides, only TG and DK can take the banner....

Vulcan wrote:Losing the +1 to hit from Lightning Reflexes makes Executioners unreliable in damage-producing, especially against elite units. Losing Killer Instincts only compounds the problem. Besides, only TG and DK can take the banner....

How do they lose +1 to hit from lightning reflexes?

The same way they lost rerolls from ASF in WFB - by using Great Weapons and striking at initiative instead of ASL.