Improved Druchii and calls of overpowered

[Danceman]

But still, were nowere close as having easy wins like some VC, deamonic, or dwarven lists.

Dwarfs have easy wins, now thats something I havent heard in a long time. *strokes his beard* I havent had an easy win with my dwarfs for ages. Our good armour saves and T4 isnt all what it used it be. The only true way for a Dwarf army to be competitive is to bring an anvil/gunline and even so war machines arent reliable. Thorek is in a league of his own as he is a special character, of which I never use. Dwarfs definitely are one of the softer(hows that for irony) books these days.

While DE might not be as straightforwards as DoC/VC but they are pretty damn close. I mean, I know people who rather face daemons! I still maintin that the learning curve isnt nearly as steep as before, not even close. Like mentioned before, DE have an answer for everything in the new book. Does this mean DE is completely broken, of course not but just as the other 2 armies that are considered to be the best(currently), if you bring all your nasty toys to the sandbox someone will start crying

[Gh9st]

It really just comes down to people, who's playing and who they're playing against. There's never going to be a soloution. There'll always be threads like this. There'll always be idiots. It's just life. *shrugs* Just gotta do your best to avoid them. =) Or klck them in the face and run...

[Zenith]

But when i face dwarves, i always see a thorec with a kraggi. Im so familiar with him i know all his special rules by head.

I mean , i still remember a time when our heroes also had T4. Then suddenly the whole elven line had to be t 3, who knows why. the ASF BG, everyone moans about it. When suddenly every high elf has ASF intergrated. swordmasters ? i really like the models, and they deserve that rule. Still they kick ass. So we have one ASF unit..

people just be glad, we dont have our crap 6ed army. and compare all this, to a steam tank, It just ruins our day all that for 300 points. We win now, besause some tricks. But we will have to play like we used to, once our tricks are played out. We only got some really nice bonuses. be happy

and WOC players, look at the nurgle lore. now that lore makes up for a lot things.

[Almundis]

I don't really get this thread. I lose regularly with my DE. Sure I'm not the best general, but I'm not completely retarded. I have fought against DE as well, heck I've beaten them with my TK (and I tell you that a Hydra does not enjoy a charge from a TK in the flaming chariot with two light chariots next to him). We have a few shiny things that everyone seems to want to take. The RoH has worked in my favour ONCE so i never take it, null shards are far more reliable. The PoK suddenly becomes very inadequate when faced with a waywatcher's S3 KB or the shadow lore spell of 3d6 S2 hits with no AS. People moan on and on and will do forever. I used to moan about dwarves and theyre billions of DD (and you can place a large bet on knowing that when they get a new book they are gonna chew us up and spit us out as they did last edition). Basically quit moaning people. If someone brings a list you don't like, play someone else. Don't handicap yourselves, just think about what your doing. Hell You'd probably win more games if you loaded up on blocks of spears and corsairs than with the beast army. Personally I don't think there's much of anything wrong with our book (aside from the manbane +stars thing- that's genuinely baffling and hypocritical of manbanes rules... but thats a whole other can of worms...)

Our magic is strong yes, but PoD gets dispelled almost constantly unless I apply some very cunning use of spells in order to try and pull it off with my last PD, and then there's always a chance of miscasts or failing to reach a casting value.

Yes we have rxbs, but aside from shades (and to a lesser extent DR but that's only cause they can get in range fast) it's highly inaccurate and S3! RBT's can managae a S6 D3 wound shot, but when was the last time you used that?!

Our movement is good yes. Better than HE probably (now we have core harpies) but have you played against a Sethayla style WE list? They can out maneuvre your combat units like they were dwarves and gun down your shooting units without any movement penalties.

Unkillable dragonlord? Treeman ancient with annoyance of nettlings. You only hit him on a 6. Do people complain? No. They simply find a way around the problem.

This is all I am gonna say on the matter cause frankly this entire thread has the distinct scent of Trolling, even if that was not it's intended purpose.

[Danceman]

But when i face dwarves, i always see a thorec with a kraggi. Im so familiar with him i know all his special rules by head.

Ask him to play Dwarfs instead. If he still refuse, his honour is tarnished and he should take the slayer oath! Poor, poor Thorek. Never getting a moments rest and seems to have been the subject of some dwarf cloning project.

As for magic, it is risky business as the Ring are often present. If only see a scroll caddy being deployed you can sure there is a ring present. Character assassination is also very risky as there is likely to be assassin assassinating the assassin sent to assassinate the character with the ring

That said I enjoy the challenge of all but the most bent lists, and even those as well at times. I have a general scorn for power-lists but that probably is a product of the gaming envoirment around here(almost all tournaments have comp or restrictions of some kind).

Unkillable dragonlord? Treeman ancient with annoyance of nettlings. You only hit him on a 6. Do people complain? No. They simply find a way around the problem.

Big flying terror causer VS a relatively slow moving monster. One should be able to pick its combats(more or less) the other is often used as an anchor(one of the few such units WE have) and can be avoided much easier.
DE while not being as effective at avoidence as the sethalya build can do it with good results and have a harder punch in combat at the same time. The flying focus familiar mage for example and so on. All in all though, DE does not mean cheese all of the time, not at all. It is however very easy to put together very strong lists and some builds are bent to say the least.

I really dont think there is any trolling going on to be honest. Hopefully it will stay that way. Right now I feel it is just a discussion about DEs transition into 7th edition and what it has meant for the race. I experienced a very similiar discussion over at Carpe Noctem concerning VC. Naturally there were many people who didnt want to admit the power of the list but eventually even they had to cave under the weight of the truth.

That is all I am trying to achieve with my posts. DE have gone up more than a notch and is a definite competitor for the top placings(which isnt a bad thing itself).

[Layne]

...aside from the manbane +stars thing- that's genuinely baffling and hypocritical of manbanes rules... but thats a whole other can of worms...)

I personally have no problem with that. If a dude's got nasty throwing thingies with horrid poison on them, he can kill the beasties that draw a chariot with much greater ease than if, say, he had not such excellent toys. With the beasties dead, the chariot is useless. If the beasties were already dead [undead, that is] it makes no difference. Fair enough.

The way I see it , the problem is that the chariot rules are necessarily a bit abstract. If they were a realistic representation of how chariots work, they'd be pretty messy. I mean, IRL, no fool ever charged a chariot into ranked infantry. You dismounted, and fought on foot, and all the chariot did was get you there faster [or, got you the hell out of there faster]. Or, you rode about the field throwing spears or whatnot.

[Zenith]

quote:
Naturally there were many people who didnt want to admit the power of the list but eventually even they had to cave under the weight of the truth.

I most certainly agree that were much stronger. Thats why im so happy. I just dont understand why we get so much more critics then AB that were already strong, and got even better.

for example: we have a chaos knight, he was already strong. But now hes much cheaper and even better. cause fear, 2 attacks for the steed (frenzy) and magical attacks.

But because he already was strong and good, it was very easy to mask him being cheaper, as people expected him to be good.

I know blood knights are even better, but at least VC pays the points for them.

As for now honestly, i won some games, and also lost some games with my 7th ed DE. i think its a 50/50

[Minsc]

I know blood knights are even better, but at least VC pays the points for them.

Don't compare cross armies.

Naked bloodknight has 3 WS5 S7, 2 WS3 S4 attacks on the charge. (+2 Str and +1 A from the rider, +1 A from the steed.)

Naked Chaos Knight has 2 WS5 S5, 1 WS3, S4 attack on the charge.

You can give the Chaos Knights frenzy for +1 A, but you can also give the Blood Knights hatred, so they still win. Granted, Chaos Knights have a 1+ save, but the Blood Knights are raisable, etc etc.
Anyway, theyre frenzied - you can decide where they go just as much as your opponent.

That said, I'm pretty scared of charging Cold One Knights with +1A from the Cauldron, much more scared than what I'm from charging Chaos Knights. (2 S6+1 S4 attack /w hatred vs 2 S5+1 S4 attack w/o hatred)

[Animatronicdemonskwerral]

Personally I don't think there's much of anything wrong with our book (aside from the manbane +stars thing- that's genuinely baffling and hypocritical of manbanes rules... but thats a whole other can of worms...)

it's been proven first by the people that presented it out logically (base strength raised, then factor in strength of bonus of weapon) then by an FAQ saying that's how logic works.

That is all I am trying to achieve with my posts. DE have gone up more than a notch and is a definite competitor for the top placings(which isnt a bad thing itself).

We have overpowered builds. There I admitted it, but I won't admit to it being bad.

What i will contend, but you're not saying this so don't take it as such, we have less obnoxious builds than last edition. A lot of MSU/MSE lists with dragons and what have you were built around not getting into combat but making your opponent tear out his hair trying to get to you only to get pulled into a forest and flank charged or something crazy. We can still do that and better not that we have cheaper core units, but why bother? stuff just hits harder now so we can at least fight it out.

[Kold]

Easy training, hard war. Hard training, easy war. (Sun Zu).

We used to play with the worst army of the game in the 6th edition. We had to learn to play hard to have a win, and now we have a great and powerful armybook...
We come from a great school, this is the main reason of our wins.

[Hawillis]

Well from my earlier post you can tell Im in with danceman.

What interests me (I havent played much WH) is that people say our movement makes us difficult - that we must set up stacked fights.

However, coming from a computer game background, its the fast armies that are the easy ones. Its the slow armies that are much harder to play because they cannot just redeploy as well. Now Im not saying that DE are easier because of it, I just lol at the similarities (where in comp games, the faster race players also think they are better cos they have to 'force' stuff and micro more, when truth is, they have it easier on the strategy mistakes that more than makes up for it).

[Danceman]

We come from a great school, this is the main reason of our wins.

You're actually saying DE players are superior as to the main reason DE have started to rack up wins. Speed doesnt make your army more tactical, it makes your list easier to execute tactical maneuvers.
Now that you got even more tools to achieve it, such as harpies, DRs, a skirmishing monster with a vicious breath weapon and the special familiar for your lvl4 to hide while bombarding the opponent with magic). Last but not least, GW armed scouts with very good BS and WS. Hatred has made your much more deadly in combat as well. And you got assassins which are just plain nasty and doesnt even take up character slots and got cheaper and significantly boosted. AP is also a big advantage, my dwarfs are scared out of their beards. You might not think that extra AP is alot but trust me, its effect hurts alot. Then there is the magic item list(which of course isnt perfect, but I cant think of any army who got a perfect list except maybe Daemons)... Put shortly, you havent got a single bad unit in the entire list.

Bottom line is, DE are a top tier army now. Just as VC and Daemons are(although I'll concede that these two are easier to break). Over at TWF the only people I have seen saying "DE is nice and balanced" list have been DE players themselves. Just saying, I didnt want to admit VC or daemons was strong at first but you can only fool yourself for so long.

Dark Elves arent the underdogs anymore, they've grown into a beast with long claws and sharp teeth. Enjoy it while it lasts, it is your turn now!

[Rork]

We come from a great school, this is the main reason of our wins.

I'd suggest that's true of anyone. A good player does not have to play a hard army, they just have to think about how to play.

You put a bad or average player in charge of a hard army and someone will eventually 'call their bluff' since the bad/average player won't know how to adapt to sub-optimal conditions. I've seen it, and I've even done it to people once in a while.

Give yourself a challenge and you will be challenged. Give yourself an easy ride and you set yourself up for a fall, regardless of army.

[Sulla]

...aside from the manbane +stars thing- that's genuinely baffling and hypocritical of manbanes rules... but thats a whole other can of worms...)

I personally have no problem with that. If a dude's got nasty throwing thingies with horrid poison on them, he can kill the beasties that draw a chariot with much greater ease than if, say, he had not such excellent toys. With the beasties dead, the chariot is useless. If the beasties were already dead [undead, that is] it makes no difference. Fair enough.

.

The really stupid thing about rending stars is not that they can get s7 with manbane; it's that a throwing star in the hands of an assassin can be s5 in the first place. That is idiotic when handguns are only s4.

[Phierlihy]

You're making the mistake of applying realistic assumptions to a game that, while inspired by, has nothing to do with reality. The writers of the book wanted the Dark Elf army to have a non-war machine high strength attack and they decided to give it to the Assassin. They called it a throwing star, they could have called it a special hand bow, or they could have even called it a piece of magic cheese. It is what it is - don't get hung up on the symantics.

[Layne]

Rending Star : S5+, range 8"

Handgun : S4 AP, range 24"

Those sorts of weapons actually do make much nastier holes than bullets, but they never go anything like as far. Bullets hardly slow down when hitting mediaeval armour on account of their extreme velocity, whereas stars are more likely to bounce or glance.

This is another necessary abstraction of the rules. Unless anyone feels like having handguns with a sliding scale of how bad it hurts depending on range to target. Or perhaps rending stars where the strength depends on the roll to hit.

[Sulla]

Rending Star : S5+, range 8"

Handgun : S4 AP, range 24"

Those sorts of weapons actually do make much nastier holes than bullets, but they never go anything like as far. Bullets hardly slow down when hitting mediaeval armour on account of their extreme velocity, whereas stars are more likely to bounce or glance.

This is another necessary abstraction of the rules. Unless anyone feels like having handguns with a sliding scale of how bad it hurts depending on range to target. Or perhaps rending stars where the strength depends on the roll to hit.

It's not a neccessary abstraction of the rules. Other throwing stars in the game are the strength of the user... Khaine somehow has unlocked the secret of making them s+1. That makes them as strong as great weapons in the hands of most elves! Rending stars being so powerful is a nice but completely unneeded buff for DE, especially since we can combine them with manbane to get a strength bonus anyway.

[Zenith]

i think the stars are very nice asset. im very happy with it

They dont go far (12 inch) so you have to get extremely close!
and combined with manbane it can have a max strengt of 7. the combined costs are however 55 pts. this is the only reliable way to kill a t5 chariot.

And elves are very and i mean very vulnereble to chariots.
in how many ways for other armies is it possible to get S7 for 55 pts or less?

yes quite a lot. chaos hero's, LM, orcs all of them with a GW and pop they have S7. So whats the big deal. also consider you have given a lot of combat potential away for the assassin.

and then one last thing, when has the rending star assassin succesfully ever shot out its points for you?

[Calisson]

danceman, I agree with all that you said.

Some nuance however:
DE are nice indeed, for DE players, obviously not for DE opponents! I know only goblins to be nice for the opponent's point of view!

DE ARE balanced, with the meaning that they behave well in all phases, but NOT with the meaning that they are in the average of WH armies.

You need not to assess your point over, nobody disputes that DE are a top tier army now. Here the consensus seems that DE are ranked #3 among all WH armies, everyone is convinced here that DE is a powerful tool.

Yes, superior maneuvrability is forgiving (but you have to know how to use it).
Yes, hatred makes the first round of melee more reliable.
Yes, the dagger makes our magic the most reliable (although there is no more immunity to miscast item).
Yes, assassins are a nice surprise and don't take a character slot (however they are expensive, vulnerable and cannot take any magic weapon save venom sword...).
Yes, they are strong builds, such as shade death star or ASF BG.

However, NO, nobody can possibly make up a list with simultaneously all of the avaliable advantages: manoeuvre, melee, magic, shooting, monsters, ASF BG, lots of assassins, whatever...
So, even if our opponents call cheese for all of the advantages that we COULD bring in, there cannot ever be the full choice of cheese available, and the elven vulnerability (fragile and costly troops) remains, which is why DE player pretend that what they DID bring is not that cheesy!

Also, as already mentioned, a powerful tool needs a skillfull artist to make good use of its full potential.
People would assume that racing against against a Ferrarri is hopeless, however, let me be the Ferrarri's driver and then your Mercedes is enough to win! Only if you drove a Lada would I bet I would win the race.

Same goes for DE: Now, they are powerful and balanced (in the meaning that they are strong in all phases) but they are simultaneously vulnerable (except a couple of units: hydra, ASF BG, dragonlord).
A good general (especially the one trained with 6th edition DE) has a precision powertool in his hands.
An average general has a powertool in his hands, which makes his life easier than with a less powerful tool, but it's not enough by itself to win all battles.


It takes both a good horse and a good rider to win races (or an incredible horse with a competent rider or an incredible rider with a competent horse).
It takes either a bad horse or a bad rider to loose races.
So usually people blame the horse.

[Zenith]

Callison...

Beautifull,

it was just that our minds could'nt utter those thoughts, you just discribed

[Dalamar]

It's all the horse's fault!