Are you afraid to buy a new army book?

Barondesade · Post by **Barondesade** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 1:16 am

It is generally agreed that the High Elf army book described a stronger army than the Dark Elf book.

I think that it is true that the Skaven army is stronger than the High Elf army.

Chaos, is, well, it's Chaos, and therefore incapable of being weak. Having the most elite heavy cavalry in the entire game as a "Core" choice certainly doesn't hurt.

A quick look at the new Beastman list left me flabbergasted. Two battles against it left me totally destroyed.

Khemri looks like an interesting army. I like Egyptian art. It might be fun to play.

BUT, I am somewhat wary of buying a new army. I spent a lot of time and money on my Dark Elf army, only to have it rendered non-competitive and obsolete by increasingly powerful army books which have come out in the last year.

How do I know that the same thing won't happen with the Khemri army? How do I know that the Brettonian army won't just wipe the floor with me every time? How do I know that the Lizardmen won't be able to cast four Comets of Casandora every round and utterly smash me?

I'm NERVOUS about buying a new WH army until all of the books are out.

What about you?

Post by **Langmann** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 1:41 am

I get your point, Baron.

Some armies like the Chaos I can stand because they have certain weaknesses, and at least I can usually outnumber them. I don't know, when I see a Steamtank I get nervous. Some things I shake my head at.

I can win a number of games to keep me happy, but if something ever goes wrong with the DE, like if a catapult lands smack on my guys then thats it the games over. There is not much room for error. Maybe its the way it really is in war, but with my other army, such as O/G, they can lose troops and shake it off easily. Maybe that's their schtick.

Hang in there Baron, perhaps GW will balance the BM a little... I hope. Perhaps DE will get some upgrades. I hate not having enough banners and no good ward saves... etc... etc....

Shockwave · Post by **Shockwave** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 1:46 am

Yeah the cascading power of the books is a problem. it's something that the've always done and when poeple acuse them of this they only relpy with "The new army sydrome" how crap.

The high elf book is stronger than ours, both in this and the last edition of the game but thats cos there is a bias in headoffice towards Helfs.

I've looked at the Chaos book and i like this alot don't hink it's to powerful to be honest but it's is better than our book.

Skaven how i hate skaven, I don't own the book the reason's why i've said elsewhere, but i have a mate who has dark elfs and one of the opponents he plays against regualy(?) has skaven and my mate refuse's to use Delfs against them instead he use's empire.

Alook at the beastman list and the mob rule fit's, Not to keen on the Ambush rule just remember with that, thet the general must be a beast for them to use ambush. But the staff of Darkoth is wrong but at least you have to use power dice to cast it unlike stormdeamon. (there's a typo on the staff i think it's meant to another spell from the law of shadows NOT beast's ) Thoughi do like the idea of a Doombull being a lvl 2 mage.

But i don't buy armies cos their hard, i buy them for the fluff, which is why i like ORC and gobbo's as well

Barondesade · Post by **Barondesade** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 2:12 am

Thanks for the well-thought out posts. That's one of the reasons I like this site.

I do believe that there is such a thing as "New Army Syndrome," but then again, that says something about the new armies now doesn't it?

If I am playing my new army for the first time, and you are playing your old army for the hundredth time, and I win, what does that mean?

To me, it means that special abilities are more important than tactics, and that people who are playing my new army need time to adapt to my special abilities while I adapt my tactics to take maximum advantage of those abilities.

Sure, most of the whining calms down once people have developed new tactics to deal with the new special abilities, but that really says something about how the game is designed, doesn't it?

Shockwave · Post by **Shockwave** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 2:16 am

Not a problem it's the least i can do.
Think of it as repayment for the good storys
(Why is it all the good storys have endings you(as in reader) don't agree with?)

Whaledawg · Post by **Whaledawg** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 2:36 am

I actualy sat down and READ the skaven book today for the first time, and I must say I finally agree. It is just plain a better book than DE. More and more powerful magic items, more choices for units and way more choices for cores. I have not sat down and read Chaos but I assume it's the same as is HE. Here is the deal though

Every new army has unique rules. When they redid fantasy they tried to use as few unique rules as possible. The DE being the first book out they tried to utilize the rules set down in the main rule book as much as possible and give out as few exceptions as they could. As time went on they became less "scared" of giving units and heros abilities, so armys had more choices and potentialy more power. This is just the price we pay for being the first army to have a book.

I think we can all agree that any DE army can handle just about any other army if you have the right troops and the right tactics. I think a bigger problem is that we have less variety of good troops. Anyone not have DR?
Anyone take spearmen instead of corsairs? This is the same problem that DE had in 40K. They eventualy fixed that too, so I m confident that Gav and the rest of the crew will tune up our rules soon enough. We can't
complain too much, some armies dont even have a book yet.

My point is(and I appologise for taking so long to get to it) that any army u get will eventualy be less powerful then the newest army. But not by too much. We may have a larger gap than most but thats the quirks of the direction they were trying to take 6th ed and not some plot against us(IMO). But u shouldnt choose an army to win, choose an army cause it's cool. And no matter what they do, they cant make DE uncool. U see, high elves are like that nice guy in the pg-13 movie everybody is rooting for and hoping he getst the girl. But we're like that shady boyfriend in the rated r movie that scrubs the girl and kicks her out of the car. Now thats cool.

Sure, your next army may be more powerful. But is it cooler? I think not my friend

Shockwave · Post by **Shockwave** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 2:42 am

interesting arguement but if that was true how comes in fifth ed our book was one of the last out and yet still one one of the weakest?

Whaledawg · Post by **Whaledawg** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 2:47 am

gremlins

Leithel and odd · Post by **Leithel and odd** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 3:02 am

Actually I thought that the two armies that came out with 6th edition were well thought out and still are able to hold a high strength against the newer armies that are hitting the shelves.

Admittedly the Elven armies, especially at a glance, seem a lot weaker. I don't nessecarily agree with that, I just think these armies are more tactical and represent their races quite well.

I've yet to see Scaven pitted against Chaos, nor have I seen the Beastman army list. But IMO the strength of your army isn't all that important anyhow. I think if you like the background, you like the modells and you enjoy painting them then you can have as much fun as anyone with your army.

However different people get different things out of the game, and a closely matched battle is often very rewarding. So if your asking me if I think they lists will get stronger and stronger, my extended response will come up with... "I'm not sure" :lol:

I mean GW is a business and they are going to have to consider how they're oging to sell the most amount of minatures. One way is to make each army that appears on the scene more attractive than the last. With the Dark Elves they did this through the very nicely modelled minatures, with Chaos it's the configurability, power and strength, with Khemri it'll be theme I thinkt hat'll attract a lot of people (especially people who liked The Mummy movie). I also think that the strengths of each army will change slightly so that each one will look like it has an ability to deal with the existing strengths of the other armies.

So yes I think the strength of the armies will gradually increase, but I don't think it's a significant enough increase to say that one army will lose to that new army all the time. Let's face it, Warhammer is a game of luck and strategy and one person with both on their side will win.

P.S. Sorry for the length of the post

Crimsondeath · Post by **Crimsondeath** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 3:57 am

The Dark Elves weren't the first book out. Empire, O&G, VC and Dwarfs were all out before the DE book was released.

IMNSHO, I think most of the books *are* quite balanced. I think the main problems are:

Dark Elves - just too.... lacking
Skaven - not nice
Chaos - complete disregard for the Core/Special/Rare system

This new Beasts of Chaos stuff sounds really nasty, but I need to take a closer look before I pass judgement on it...

Pokeme · Post by **Pokeme** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 4:03 am

Guys look. A quick glance at skaven magic weapons alone, I can spot 7 that are very good and useful. I'm spoiled for choice!!! :shock:

Dungeon_god · Post by **Dungeon_god** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 4:55 am

BaronDeSade wrote: I do believe that there is such a thing as "New Army Syndrome," but then again, that says something about the new armies now doesn't it?

If I am playing my new army for the first time, and you are playing your old army for the hundredth time, and I win, what does that mean?

To me, it means that special abilities are more important than tactics, and that people who are playing my new army need time to adapt to my special abilities while I adapt my tactics to take maximum advantage of those abilities.

I also think some of it is that the army has not been played against, so the person is not ready for all of the new units and quirks-something of a "beginners luck" type of syndrome.

In general, I love the Druchii. I love their fluff, I love the idea. I hate the army book. Why? Because I feel that the book was shiz out in about an hour, where as the other army books are year-long masterpieces. I own Skaven, DE, Empire and Vampire Counts, and all of those seem to be better playtested, better thought out, and better balanced than DE were. Instead, DE seem to have been cobbled together to meet a deadline. It makes me sad.

Dungeon_god · Post by **Dungeon_god** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 4:58 am

PokeMe wrote:Guys look. A quick glance at skaven magic weapons alone, I can spot 7 that are very good and useful. I'm spoiled for choice!!!

Yes. I must agree.

And HE are cheesy-I played against a high magic army a friend was trying out the other day. It was..interesting. And WS 6 on troops? Grr...

Oh well. Maybe in 7th ED, right?

Post by **Sneaky** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 5:08 am

Well, I think that it is mainly the armies that came out AFTER the Dark Elves that suffer from cheese syndrome. I think that they are pretty balanced in terms of points, it's just that they are a bit more lenient with the cheese factor on them than with other armies. With Chaos, High Elves and Vampire Counts, there is the option of cheesiness, but it costs. I don't know the Skaven book well enough to comment, though. And I haven't seen the Beasts of Chaos yet.

The stuff that came out earlier was fine. But then, given all the complaints about the Dark Elves, I think GW overreacted and went a little higher on the cheese factor. Dark Elves, I think, are the only race that have no cheese factor.

By cheese factor, I mean stuff that is always going to do something nasty. There is little element of chance with it. Every army has a certain cheese factor, EXCEPT DARK ELVES. The cheese factor always costs, which is a good thing, but it's there. That way you can balance your cheese. Here are some examples of cheese:

Chaos:

Great stats
Lovely magic weapons
Flexibility in Core/Special choices
Daemonic special rules

High Elves:

Honours
Magic
Magic items

Empire:

STEAM TANK (a big one - it's too hard to kill)
Hellblaster volley gun
Black Powder

Dark Elves:

NONE :!:

I think that most of the armies are pretty well balance, with a good portion of cheese per army. I think that Chaos is a little too cheesy, but that's Chaos for you. You always pay for the cheese. But Dark Elves have no cheese. The idea of them is to be a low cheese, high skill army, but there should be a little cheese. They never edited their work...

I hope you enjoyed that little post. That's a few snatches from an essay I'm thinking about writing for the Articles and Essays forum (I don't mind you jumping on it first, though). Sorry if it's a bit incoherent, but I hope that you get the general idea.

Draichlord · Post by **Draichlord** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 6:00 am

I'll get whatever books I need for pre-existing armies. I'm considering tomb kings since I already have VC. There really wouldn't be too much to add. I've said repeatedly that the biggest problem with our book is that it was done by a non-DE player who is clueless. The kick is that it continues with his most recent admission that HE STILL DOESN'T EVEN OWN A DE ARMY AND HE'D HAVE TO PLAY IT TOO MUCH TO DO A PROPER RE-EVALUATION, WHICH HE DOESN'T HAVE TIME FOR. Did all of you understand that ? What does it say about any chance for a revision any time soon, if ever at all? He's a dwarf player who even back in 5th ed. had expressed dislike for any elven army. As for all us DE players in 6th ed., he's stalled or outright lied to us time and again. In my eyes, he's a lump of shiz....and should be to all DEplayers for the way we've been treated from the beginning by this dirtbag.

Dungeon_god · Post by **Dungeon_god** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 6:08 am

I generally have to agree with you, Sneaky. But, I also think that the earlier armies are balanced and can still win a lot of the time vs. the newer armies-which DE cannot do!

Da'ghault · Post by **Da'ghault** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 6:32 am

I'm really not scared at all buying new army books. They seems a little overpowered when you first read them, but later you see their weaknesses.
And some armies are really hard for certain armies. That has to do what they are good at and how they are supposed to fight. It is impossible that this will happen and it is totally impossible to balance it totally without all having the same army.
I am more annoyed over the fact that some armies have troops with lower stats and that way costs less. Then they give these troops special rules for free that basically negates their weaknesses.
Core chariots without limitations are another annoyment factor.
I do admit though that I find it scary to meet a Skaven army (Haven't done that yet). I suppose the only thing to do is to charge and pray to khaine.

I have met HE twice and massacred them both times. And they got a newer book. I think they need an even newer book.

Da'Ghault Deceiver of the Damned

Post by **Thanee** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 8:17 am

Yep, Dark Elves was not the first book to come out. I still think the big problem was, that the thoughts of the designer (Tuomas Pirinen) were cut at some point, where he left GW, and then someone (Gav) took over the project and couldn't finish it with the same spirit. I don't even think it's Gav's fault, I'm sure he tried to design a good and fun army, but just that the circumstances were very bad. Now, what I do not understand is, that GW still denies this...

About the Skaven, yes they are very powerful, but they also have a tendency to have things go wrong. If you minimize on this weakness (most good Skaven armies do), you get a lot of advantages, that are not balanced by weaknesses anymore, something we cannot do (minimize on our weaknesses).

About Chaos, I think this is one of the more balanced books, especially considering, that it was one of the most recent. Daemons are overbalanced if anything. If they had given a DECENT Core/Special/Rare system to them (the current one is completely against the spirit of that system in the first place), the book would be absolutely fine.

Now with the inclusion of the Beasts of Chaos, I'm not so sure anymore...

About the new army books, I'm not scared by anything. I'm quite certain, that there are armies, which are simply better than ours, a perfect balance, as much as this might be admireable, does not exist, when you include so much variety as they do in Warhammer. Zillions of different troop types and magic item combinations cannot lead to a perfect balance between the armies. The only thing they can try is to get it as close as possible.

There are armies we have a better chance at beating as much as there are armies that can beat us easier than others. If this is true for all armies, it's also a kind of a balance, and as long as this cyclic balance is not too noticeable (i.e. you lose everytime against a certain army but win everytime against another army), I think it's ok.

Bye
Thanee

Metallurgist · Post by **Metallurgist** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 8:55 am

I largely agree with Thanee.

Most army books are quite balanced, with a few exceptions. DE are sub par, skaven are somewhat above par. I think that's it, although the HE book contains too many mistakes to my liking (phoenix guard, sea guard, the intrigue rule so many people dislike...), a bit less than DE and less critical (they still got great spearmen and silver helms, and chariots, and eagles, and dragon princes, and...)

I'd elaborate on this but I'm afraid I have to go.

Cheers
-Metallurgist

Adreal_the_immaculate · Mon Oct 28, 2002 9:03 am

what are you people talking about, dark elves get get cheese :roll:

, you can get 4 terror causeing monsters in under 2000 pts, you can also get cold ones, shades, corsairs (or warriors) and dakr riders, sure you'de have no missle fire, but chessy armies always lack something, and although this army would still suck in the hands of an amature but with carefull deployment (what army can really survivew without carefull deployment) you'll rule :twisted:

Shockwave · Post by **Shockwave** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 11:30 am

4 terror causing monster is not a chessy as it first looks as you only ever make one terror test for a unit. besides thats just under 1000 pts without items, where as for just under one third of htose points you get a steam tank which is far worst.

Malekithau · Post by **Malekithau** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 12:51 pm

New army syndrome is a fact. GW staffers admit it and I'm not talking about at the local store, I mean at HQ. When they create a new army they do so with the aim of making it more "interesting" then the last one.
They do this by adding special rules such as ambush.

What a lot of people don't realise is that GW is not really a games company. It's a marketing company and army creep is simply another marketing tool as is WD, Games Day etc

Personally I think that most armies are very capable except DE. For some reason they put out a very poor army book for DE. I'd play almost any other army over DE now and I've been playing DE since 3rd Ed. It's very disappointing.

Barondesade · Post by **Barondesade** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 1:39 pm

You know, Thanee, I agree that it would be impossible to perfectly balance everything, but at the same time, there is a lot of stuff coming out that is just so blatantly wrong that we don't even have to play with it to see it. The Beastman Staff of Darkoth is a good example. Having the Clanrats haul around Baby Hellblasters is another. The Storm Banner is another. How is it fair that the inclusion of one magic item can impact the game so much?

You've looked at the new Beastman list. It's pure cheese, isn't it? Do you really believe that they put it out, unaware that it was cheese? It's like Korr's argument that Gav might have some brilliant DE strategies in his head, but just won't tell anyone. Why, why, why?

It would, of course, be impossible to have completely balanced armies, but I think it would be possible to write new army lists that don't cause the readers to break out in choruses of "CHEESE!"

Keledron · Post by **Keledron** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 1:53 pm

All I can say is having played against every army out there over the past year the DE arn't so bad and I'll still be playing with mine for a while.

Rules creep is a real issue at GW and there are some initiatives underway to try and reign it in. This is something that has come from fanatic and is slowly propogating through to the main design studio.

As to the army books yep the DE book is poor in comparision to most of the others with careful troop selection being necessary. As to HE generally I give as good as I get so despite the seeming strengths of the list they aren't vastly better if at all. I played 2 at this weekends GT lost one (Cavalry based) and won one (infantry based) so it all depends and what you pick.

Generally the newer books are better this is at least in part due to some stylistic changes that came with the Skaven & Chaos books, the Tomb Kings book stylistically is much more like the prvious ones and the list whilst pretty awsome on the surface isn't as bad as it appears.
They certainly don't look to be any better than average judging from what I've seen.

Leithel and odd · Post by **Leithel and odd** » Mon Oct 28, 2002 1:58 pm

BaronDeSade wrote: It would, of course, be impossible to have completely balanced armies, but I think it would be possible to write new army lists that don't cause the readers to break out in choruses of "CHEESE!"

Sounds like an episode of Pinky and the Brain.

"Are you pondering what I'm Pondering Malekith?"
"I fink so brain, but me and Pippy Longstockings, what would the children look like!?"

"What are we doing tomorrow night Brain,"
"Same thing we do every night Malekith, try to take over the world!"

Anyone noticed how much Malekith is actually a lot like Pinky? I wonder who The Brain is then...