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Reading through every scrap of rumors I have found (which covers most of the book), I am left with a sinking feeling that the DE lists currently being played will remain largely unchanged. I will not go into the discussion whether the new armybook is strong or week (that's too soon), but it feels like the new stuff will have a hard time replacing any of our established units:

- New Lord choices sound underwhelming at best. The admiral (with his Light Armour and only 50 pts of MI allowance) needs to kill characters in a challenge to get any milage out of his special rules, and this is unlikely to happen as weaker chars will just refuse the challenge. The Beastmaster can either ride a Manticore or a chariot and could possibly be a cheaper alternative to a Dragon, but he'll still weight in at about 400 pts with all his gear which would mean that any Lvl4 wizard will not have many points to spend on upgrades.

- New Sisters sounds very, very(, very), fragile for their points costs and damage output. Even assuming they make it into combat without being breathed on, shot at, or magically obliterated, they will never go above S3 and so will stand chanceless against anything with good AS. They also cannot remove Steadfast and at 7.5 slaves per model they will struggle to have many ranks themselves.

- New Scourgerunner is 75 slaves, but only 24" range. This means most of the shots will only hit on 5+. What is even worse, if they DO hit and DO cause a wound, they will drag the enemy monster closer to our lines? Unless we have ample shooting to take it down in a single turn, that will just mean we just gave the enemy monster D6" extra charge range for free.

- New Medusa sounds quite expensive, 45 slaves for 4 shots at S4 with KB will most likely not pick off more than a single knight or two (which probably is the ideal target). Haven't seen the full rules for this one, so will not judge it too harshly.

- The currently underused units; BG, CoK, CoC stayed mostly the same, and will probably not be very commonly used.

At the same time, our magic got better, our pegasus chars have access to very nice protection (3++ against all spells and missiles), shades remain the same, crossbows can take Flaming banner, and bolt throwers and Hydras just got moved to special. At large, it seems my armylist wont change anywhere as much as I had hoped it will, in terms of variance and new way to make the list. Actually, the single change that I am most happy with when it comes to variance is the access to all rulebook lores -- this at least will allow us to e.g. play lists focused around the Lore of Life.

Of course I know this is premature, we have to wait and see how the army plays out.

I think a new playstyle will open up, one resembling closer to the High Elves, in which we have a single, solid block of infantry with an army of chaff around it. Looking at some of the spells (signature boosting strength, for example), the CoB now being pushed by infantry and the collection of strong models in their own right (second monster, flying monsters, RBTs) this seems like a new path available to us. The shroud of despair spell might work excellently with this.

This is all prematurely, of course, but ... those are my initial thoughts. Our previous AB was flexible, which kept us in the game for so long, but the meta pigeon holed us to a few options only. With the current rule rumours circling about, I feel like we're back into "pushing" our game, which may open our options and playstyles, with enough traditional "move and shoot" as backup should all else fail.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

As for me... I think my list will change a bit... maybe a bit more shooting... (never used that in the old book)
I might actually leave my Black Guard at home now. In the last edition i always had one unit of them with the AP banner. Always rerolling to hit.....S4 AP...they were a real boon against any cavalry my opponent may use.

I'm still not sure if i will ever include cavalry in my list...it is way to expensive to use, and dies to easily (only T3). But we will see...

Getting access to the other lores is a big change though, and having access to high S attacks already (The "kraken" and Executioners), means that you can focus your lists differently. Lore of Life sounds like the new lore to use for me.

Our characters are not as strong as before, and I fear they might be even weaker than some of the HE characters... I do like Cloak of Twilight though... it gives us an item for a very strong pegasus character for sure.

My army is doomed to change a lot. Mostly since all my auto-include magic items seem to be gone (crimsomdeath, pendant, <that regen armor>, lifetaker). And while cloack of twilight+chillblade to dragonlord makes it formbiddable on charge, it no longer can charge large heavy infantry (khorne warriors etc) since it will get killed after first round due to only 2+ armor. Uber stalling unit (pegahero+pendant) is gone also so it seems that the infantry (which i previously had only rxb) will have to do the killing.

I almoust exclusively play with etc rules so dumping pendant hero opens opportunity for cauldron which is nice.

<edit> on a second thought, dragon for that combo is stupid since the dragon either, gets to hit only after rider is already dead or does not have anything to hit since lord did the right thing </edit>

Setomidor wrote:- New Sisters sounds very, very(, very), fragile for their points costs and damage output. Even assuming they make it into combat without being breathed on, shot at, or magically obliterated, they will never go above S3 and so will stand chanceless against anything with good AS. They also cannot remove Steadfast and at 7.5 slaves per model they will struggle to have many ranks themselves.

They're just as fragile as WE. You probably want to use the SoS as a flanking unit. Basically, use them like WE.

- New Scourgerunner is 75 slaves, but only 24" range. This means most of the shots will only hit on 5+. What is even worse, if they DO hit and DO cause a wound, they will drag the enemy monster closer to our lines? Unless we have ample shooting to take it down in a single turn, that will just mean we just gave the enemy monster D6" extra charge range for free.

You aren't thinking of the possibility of running one or two up a flank where your opponent has a monster (say, a Skaven Hellpit Abom anchoring that flank) and harassing it and pulling it out of position. Or heck, pulling INTO position for some nastiness (spells, concentrated fire, your own monster mash, etc.).

- New Medusa sounds quite expensive, 45 slaves for 4 shots at S4 with KB will most likely not pick off more than a single knight or two (which probably is the ideal target). Haven't seen the full rules for this one, so will not judge it too harshly.

It does the same thing as its shooting attack to all models in base contact (50x50 base when "on foot") in combat automatically, plus it has its melee attacks. So it has the potential for nastiness.

I want to read the rules on the Scourgerunner. If the monster-dragging effect also changes the facing of the monster to the direction it moves, that could be quite disruptive.

for some reason i doubt it will, tho if it did then even a 1" pull could be devistating to your enemies plan.
actually thinking about it... tho it would throw a spanner in your enemies plan... that big bad monster is now facing YOUR chariot and its your enemies turn now...

Dragon9 wrote:You aren't thinking of the possibility of running one or two up a flank where your opponent has a monster (say, a Skaven Hellpit Abom anchoring that flank) and harassing it and pulling it out of position. Or heck, pulling INTO position for some nastiness (spells, concentrated fire, your own monster mash, etc.).

Yeah, but you'd be sending 300 points down the flank and still only hitting on 5+. Each of the chariots is reasonably close in points to our own Monsters, and I'm thinking that another two Kharibdyss is sweeter than two of the fragile chariots.

Dragon9 wrote:It does the same thing as its shooting attack to all models in base contact (50x50 base when "on foot") in combat automatically, plus it has its melee attacks. So it has the potential for nastiness.

What I'm worried about is that many of the things out there simply ignores KB anyway. Read Monsters, all MC/MI/MB, and all characters mounted on those. I'd say it depends on the Movement value and protection of the Medusa, if it's M7-M8 I'd be happy to use it as a redirector/potential threat.

I think everyone's list will change. It's a new shift in the direction of fantasy. I honestly think Dark Elves are the army that will change the meta back from Flying un-killable Demon princes/Crushers/Phoenix's to the more traditional fantasy army you think of when looking across the battlefield. Bodies lined up across from each other. foot troops supported by monsters and chariots and knights.. It's like empire only on the power level of WOC/Demons/HE.

It's never a bad thing to have choices (one reasons I started dark elves back in 7th). I bet you that once the dust settles, there will be several different power lists. I know this is premature as we're just going off someone telling things straight from the book, but there's no unit I have seen that will not have some sort of a niche. Nothing (save for chillwind and a few of the magic items) stands out as Fracking bloody terrible.

Actually all the high priced magic items look a bit bad. And Dark Magic isn't all that impressive. But the rest looks solid.

Been disapointed with the new models, but not that hard to get the old ones. The rules however seems to be more to my liking then before.
I'll try to go the MSU combat army aproach. Only bigish units will be a block or two of 20 spearmen.
For magic I'm kinda liking the idea of lv4 heavens suported by a lv2 dark.

Still piecing together what I like with what I'll need. Most info for making a skeleton of a list is avalible. Sadly I'm building from scratch and on a budget so will take me some time to get to field the army.

Phierlihy wrote:Actually all the high priced magic items look a bit bad. And Dark Magic isn't all that impressive. But the rest looks solid.

I'm not a fan of the two magic weapons, but I think every other item is good. Not mind blowing lay awesome and obvious but really good. I think Dark magic like high magic will divide opinions. Personally I think it's brilliant. To me it feels very much like "disruption" was a key phrase the design team had in their head. Other than some if the balls out combos with frenzy / cob it feels to me like dark elves have stepped back from being super I your face to a more disruptive sort of army. It's no longer about until label characters, cob super powers and bombing big nuke spells. Instead it's more like 6th - cunning and skill to hinder your opponents and combing different elements to bring death to enemy units.

I think the new DE book looks like it will be very strong against the chimera style WoC lists. Perhaps moving the meta on again...

Rasputinii wrote:Instead it's more like 6th - cunning and skill to hinder your opponents and combing different elements to bring death to enemy units.

I stopped playing WHFB before 6th edition hit, but I'd love to go back to such a style, 8th ed with 7th ed rules truly has been a little whack-a-mole-y.

edit
Quote came out wrong... somehow... sorry Phierlihy

I didn't write that...