Is the Pendant of Khaeleth Fair?

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Danceman
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Post by Danceman »

Thomus Darkblade wrote:My infantry heavy dogs of war score lower than my dark elves. Solely because they have no magic items of worth aside from dispel scrolls. 4 dispel scrolls is apparently like the cheesiest thing ever.


To balance out the heavy toll a magic heavy army takes. It's a balance between not taking the biggest magic phase ever and not easily shutting a decent magic phase out. Have to see it all in context with each other.

Also, comp cannot be compared across armies. Greater daemons might not take as big of a hit as a dragon but on the other hand they cannot raise their comp in any other way than taking core infantry blocks.

But I agree it isnt perfect, but it aint that bad either. Comp isnt that much of a deciding factor in the end, it just keeps everyone honest so to speak :P
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Post by Oak_prince »

I don't use the Pendant. The guys at my LGS think that its rules don't overrule the rule that you always fail a save on a one. I just use the Armor of Eternal Servitude. Meh.
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Post by Frigus morte »

Oak_Prince wrote:I don't use the Pendant. The guys at my LGS think that its rules don't overrule the rule that you always fail a save on a one. I just use the Armor of Eternal Servitude. Meh.


It does save on a 1 what I know :S. The rulebook states that "No one is invincible". But since it fails on a 6 wielder wont become invincible. Also armybook > rulebook right?

Sorry for the offtopic.
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Post by Swissdictator »

I'm new to Druchii as a player, but one of my friends is devout player of the Druchii.

He uses the item on his BSB in his CoK. It's tough, and that can be mildly aggravating... but it doesn't worry me to much. It makes something hard to kill, though there are several spells that get around it. Steal Soul comes to mind... and my Chaos Dwarfs love that spell.

Besides, be a dread lord or a BSB... DE armies don't center around that one character like a VC list does with their general, for example.... or Demons with their Great Demon.

It only has a small aura of effect and only does so well. Plus, even if you have a Dragon, if my memory serves me correctly, the ward doesn't transfer to the mount.

It's a healthy item, which is reliable, but it can be worthless in some situations. It's not a game turner in my list, nor do DE require it to win either. It's a *great* item and I think the price is dead on... having both played against it, and tried out my army list using it.
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Post by Sezax »

They have no right to judge such thing - tell them.

You may pay them back by demanding same rights after finding something very strong like vampire lord etc.
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Post by Notts »

Swissdictator wrote:I'm new to Druchii as a player, but one of my friends is devout player of the Druchii.

He uses the item on his BSB in his CoK. It's tough, and that can be mildly aggravating... but it doesn't worry me to much. It makes something hard to kill, though there are several spells that get around it. Steal Soul comes to mind... and my Chaos Dwarfs love that spell.

Besides, be a dread lord or a BSB... DE armies don't center around that one character like a VC list does with their general, for example.... or Demons with their Great Demon.

It only has a small aura of effect and only does so well. Plus, even if you have a Dragon, if my memory serves me correctly, the ward doesn't transfer to the mount.

It's a healthy item, which is reliable, but it can be worthless in some situations. It's not a game turner in my list, nor do DE require it to win either. It's a *great* item and I think the price is dead on... having both played against it, and tried out my army list using it.


how is the price dead on when the Empires holy relic grants only a 4+ ward save, for 45 pts?
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Post by Langmann »

Lethalis wrote:Calling a single item cheesy is showcasing a blatant disregard for intra-army balancing and therefore a lack of understanding of how the game works. For example, it may balance out the fact that from the brave Dark Elf warrior to the battle-hardened Black Guard to the cruel Dreadlords, almost our entire army has T3.


Yep. Warhammer FB is not a balanced game. If people want to play a balanced game they should try Flames of War. Somehow after two editions the makers of that game have a nice balance in their lists.

It is up to the players of WFB to play with their opponent's in mind. Making uber lists is hardly fun for the opponent unless you both agree to do it.

This is one item and hardly a game winning one as opposed to some of the unit compositions some armies can make which we are all aware of. Why people are freaking out is beyond me.
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Post by Arcturus »

It's a bit on the cheap side, then again, most armies in this game have overpriced and underpriced items. The most underpriced item in the Delf book is Ring of Hotek. The pendant only gives you a hero that's hard to kill, dark elves still lack a bit in the offensive magic weapons category, which means you aren't getting any kind of super hero, even with the pendant. I see the pendant as utility, you can tar-pit powerful characters with it, you don't really have to watch out for cannonballs as long as you're on a normal mount, etc. Being 5/6 immune to str 5+ attacks isn't unkillable, just hard to kill. Compare to for example Kairos Fateweaver, with a 3+ ward and flight, on a monster that's T6(IIRC). Not bad either.

Offcourse, if anyone actually thinks FB is fair or balanced, I'd suggest having their heads checked.

It's often people who find their own cheese is trumped by some other cheese that start whinging about "unfair" which is most amusing to watch, but very boring with time and repetition.

As with forum discussions usually, people paint small problerms to be much larger than they are, and games go on as normal at tournaments, clubs and stores, without much problems.

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Post by Grez90 »

Arcturus wrote:It's often people who find their own cheese is trumped by some other cheese that start whinging about "unfair" which is most amusing to watch, but very boring with time and repetition.


Too right lol, I'v seen people with high elf dragon armies lose terribly to lizardmens skink army of doom, funny as hell when you see the high elf player rushing through his book to see if his dragon has more wounds/better protection so that his dragons aren't dead because of a barrage of blowpipe shots.
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Post by Sulla »

notts wrote:how is the price dead on when the Empires holy relic grants only a 4+ ward save, for 45 pts?


...And it works vs steal soul, Baleful Transmogrification, Magnificent Buboes and other spells which don't have a strength. It works vs rebounded wounds, acid blood spray stuff etc. It can be combined with van horstman's speculum. It's on a t4 lord usually.

In other words, there are too many variables to consider. Yes, the pendant is a good item, but so is VHS, so is a strikes first sword with +1 strength.
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Post by Kyrel »

I haven't read through 4 pages worth of comments on this, so sorry about any repeat of opinions.

Is the Pendant overpowered? No it's not.

The pendant shines against anything that attacks the wearer with a high strength value. Basically this means everything that people normally try to take out a Lord type character with. Is that hard? Sure it's annoying for the opponent when his normal S7+ character killer has a hard time finishing off the pesky Druchii lord. But people that moan about this is IMO just not used to thinking out of the box. Sure it's a challenge to kill off a character with a 1+ armour save, and a 3- ward save. But there are still plenty of ways for a just reasonably intelligent opponent to deal with a character with the Pendant.

Druchii Lords are T3, and the Pendant doesn't protect against any kind of attacks/effects that does not use a Strength value. Basically that means a variety of spells, psychology, some magical items, and regular combat resolution (and probably some other things that I'm forgetting at the moment).

"But a regular 4+ ward save is normally 45 pts." some people say. Yes it is. But 1) it works against all types of wound causing effects, 2) it is no longer possible to simply compare the cost of a given item or unit across different armies, and 3) most other characters that can have such a normal 4+ ward save is also T4+. On top of that there is also the question of what the Pendant can be combined with, what the rest of the army looks like, and what role a Pendant wearer might have in the army.

Basically I see nothing wrong with the Pendant as it is. There are plenty of ways to "skin a Druchii with that item...".


/Kyrel
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Post by Notts »

sulla wrote:
notts wrote:how is the price dead on when the Empires holy relic grants only a 4+ ward save, for 45 pts?


...And it works vs steal soul, Baleful Transmogrification, Magnificent Buboes and other spells which don't have a strength. It works vs rebounded wounds, acid blood spray stuff etc. It can be combined with van horstman's speculum. It's on a t4 lord usually.

In other words, there are too many variables to consider. Yes, the pendant is a good item, but so is VHS, so is a strikes first sword with +1 strength.

the strike first +1 str sword is TERRIBLE no one ever takes it.

And yes, the VHS is good. It is too good and undercosted, just like the PoK.
When an army list has magic items which you see in 99% of lists, you know it is underpriced.
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Post by Western elf »

Because 'too many variables to consider' is about three, apparently. :P

The pendant is too cheap. Everyone knows that. It's not the end of the world. There are worse things, such as the demon army book. :)
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Post by Langmann »

notts wrote:When an army list has magic items which you see in 99% of lists, you know it is underpriced.



Yeah people have complained about the costs/balance of this game since first edition. Honestly I have given up complaining about it, and just accepted that GW doesn't want to make a balanced game. In fact I think they actually do it on purpose as it appeals to all the people out there who love that old argument: "My dad is bigger than your dad."

If I want to play a game with a high quality of balance I play something else. WFB can be a lot of fun if played with the right person. Or it can be stupid if you manage to get one of "those people".

On the list of silly things this item is hardly one of the most overpowered items/combos/units/lists in this game, or previous versions. I wonder why it has gathered so much attention and apparently the banning of it at certain clubs.

Heck if you ban this item, you'd have to ban half of Warhammer.
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Post by Grez90 »

In fact I think they actually do it on purpose as it appeals to all the people out there who love that old argument: "My dad is bigger than your dad."


Or maybe its because they need money and think, oooh, if we make this list better than the others, then those stupid people who will do absolutely anything to win will buy it and then we will get lots of money.

Leave to simmer, stir, repeat process....
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Post by Loki »

I think we are too harsh on GW. They are a business first. They're primary goal is to make money (in spite of what all of you might think, that is the sole purpose of a business). If they made every single list that came out perfectly balanced, then two things would happen. 1) It would be hard to introduce new things to the game and maintain that balance. 2) They would lose all the tournament goers that look for a new edge, and everyone that gets the new army because they want to play with all the new toys. Sales would decrease, GW would lose money. They would fail their primary goal.
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Post by Langmann »

Loki wrote:I think we are too harsh on GW. They are a business first. They're primary goal is to make money (in spite of what all of you might think, that is the sole purpose of a business).


True.

If they made every single list that came out perfectly balanced, then two things would happen. 1) It would be hard to introduce new things to the game and maintain that balance. 2) They would lose all the tournament goers that look for a new edge, and everyone that gets the new army because they want to play with all the new toys. Sales would decrease, GW would lose money. They would fail their primary goal.


I used to think that as well. Then I started playing Flames of War. They constantly introduce new stuff (that I want to buy) but the game is incredibly balanced. So it is possible.

I think it is part of the whole fantasy theme that they feel they (GW) have to produce a wow factor. Honestly I think they could make a balanced game and people would still buy stuff. Having playtested for GW and hearing a majority of playtesters complain about something only to see it come out in print is very frustrating.

I think a player just has to accept the game as being unbalanced, like a fantasy world would be I suppose, and take everything as a challenge, don't take it personally if you lose and cherish the concientious opponent who provides a fun game.
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Post by Western elf »

langmann wrote:I think a player just has to accept the game as being unbalanced, like a fantasy world would be I suppose, and take everything as a challenge, don't take it personally if you lose and cherish the concientious opponent who provides a fun game.


Exactly. It's not a sport, and winning doesn't make anyone a tactical genius. Winning doesn't mean anything, in fact.

It's more of a roleplaying exercise really.
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Post by Mr. anderson »

Winning doesn't mean anything, in fact.


This is getting slightly off topic, but I must heartily disagree with that - winning is the whole point of playing. If you didn't want to win, you wouldn't play and you wouldn't need dice and you wouldn't need rules (whose sole purpose is to show you the way how to win the game). You could just push your units around on the table yelling "BANG BANG YOUR DEAD". The ultimate purpose is to win, and to have fun winning - or losing, whichever. But if you wouldn't play to win, why play? You don't create strategies and armylists for the sake of having them, you create them because you think that you stand a fair chance of winning. If you play soccer with two teams on a soccer field, you kick the ball towards the goal because you want to win, and while you want to win you still have a whole heap of fun because you enjoy the challenge. Wanting to win and wanting to have fun doesn't exclude each other - it goes hand in hand with each other, and you can't have either without the other, ergo winning means a lot instead of nothing at all. You just have to keep your ego out of the equation - whether you win or lose has nothing to do with your ego and the amount of victories don't change what kind of person you are, but ultimately we all play to win. That's what the game is all about.

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Post by Western elf »

Ah, but I didn't say you shouldn't try to win. I just said it doesn't mean anything if you do. :)
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Post by Notts »

If he has just said he doesn't play to win, then why do you feel the ability to state that we all play to win?

Warhammer is different things to different people: I am in it mainly for modeling, collecting and painting. When I do play games, I hope I come up against someone who does consider their opponent when they write their lists.
I don't want to face a 16 Pd demon army of doom. I don't want to face 2 stanks, a waltar and 4 cannons etc.
However, there are other people who build the strongest armies possible to win as much as possible.

As long as you play other people well suited to you, it's fine.
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Post by Rob the dark elf »

I don't think the pendant is overpowered. I agree that it is a very good item and a bargain for the price. But it doesn't turn your Dark Elf charcter into a game winner all on his own. It's a really useful item but I think there are cheesier items and indeed units in the game.

the strike first +1 str sword is TERRIBLE no one ever takes it.


I played a couple of games with Empire and I quite liked this item. Maybe its just me though.
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Post by No one »

this discussion has been going for more than a week (or two) and I´ve followed it since the start, and I finally have come to an opinion:
1)the pendant is very cheap for what it does however this is compensated by the fact that a dark elf is only T3 so not very hard to wound and furthermore a darkelf army isn't build around one character (exept for a dragon list but then you just kill the dragon and not the lord) so not being able to kill the lord isn't that bad (and remember he can still break from combat and get overrun) so please stop whining.
2)it seems some people just always have to whine and my advice with such people: just ignore them (or at least the whining).
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Post by Chain »

[/quote]

how is the price dead on when the Empires holy relic grants only a 4+ ward save, for 45 pts?[/quote]


Because the pendant don't give anything against none strength based attacks.

Read the new nurgle spells?
the 5+ cast spell if it go through take a wound no armor save allowed and it doesn't mention S at all= pendant is worthless
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Post by Notts »

but the pendant will usually give a better save than the holy relic, and although there are some attacks without a Str value, there aren't that many.
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