Are High Elves overpowered?

[Liber]

You're right in the fact that it is possible to fail Ld tests, just as it's possible for the goblins to wipe out the spearmen in a single round of combat.

One of those is much more likely than the other and its silly to compare two examples so far apart, I never did or would. I'm assuming you meant WL's when you said spearmen.

As soon as you start saying things like: "Well the HE player is going to bring in this unit" or "the goblins might not have a BSB in range" you're opening the flood gates to anything happening

Anything could happen. Thats what Warhammer is. So again, why on earth is it at all useful to calculate scenarios that would never happen in a real game...and use the results to determine how to behave in said real game? Even the equipment of the hero's must be ignored.

Math like this is useful, because it can help players identify whether or not outside intervention is needed for a combat to swing in their favor.

The best (and truest) statement that could be made in the support of math hammer. But this next quote drives home for me why its pretty useless:

Assumptions are how we win games. If you think charging a unit of 20 skaven slaves into a horde of chaos warriors will leave you with a decent chance of success because the dice gods think averages are meaningless, then that's your prerogative.

Nobody would ever think that a good idea. You are reaching to extremes in an attempt to prove your point, but it has the opposite effect. Because indeed, no player with half a brain needs math hammer to tell them that charging 20 skaven slaves into a larger group of WoC is a good idea. We don't need math hammer to know this. Cause its obvious. Now, you could say that its needed for less obvious examples...but if the hypothetical match up is that close as too an experienced player having no idea which unit will come out on top, well thats called a toss up. And no amount of 'averages' is going to change that.

What I mean is this:

Player wants too charge unit A at unit B. A and B are closely matched, so he uses math to work out that unit A has a 45% chance to win the combat. Does he not charge? Then he is a fool. Of course he charges, one dice roll being better then average swings that 45% into a victory for him! If he had never bothered to work out the odds, he still would have charged, understanding the match up to be roughly equal. The only people I can see math hammer being good for are new players that just don't understand the balance of strengths and weakness's between units yet. Not saying there is anything wrong with something benefiting new players btw. But its usefulness is ridiculously narrow.

Sure, bus formation makes it so that the goblins only get 28 attacks instead of 40. It also means the white lions only get 10 attacks instead of 30, so there's really no sensible reason to cut your offensive power by 66% if you're only cutting your opponent's offensive power by 30%. Additionally the White lions are stubborn, and don't gain anything from the extra ranks (given that they aren't negating the goblin's steadfast). In this case it is best for the white lions to stay in horde formation and work on getting another unit into combat to swing things in their favor.

I wasn't suggesting to do this. Just pointing out how narrow math hammer is as whenever it is used the most simple setups (ie horde of 30 so all can attack) are used. Just not applicable to real game scenarios.

Against the White Lions it didn't matter, because they already hit them on 5's.

Again, I was pointing out the narrow scope.

I didn't want this to be a discussion about this example of math hammer in particular, for the simple reason that they are all so similar. Assuming conditions that simply do not exist in game for the sake of simplicity and therefore calculability(not a word but I'm using it!)

I'm not arguing that math hammer has *no* purpose. Just that it is highly over rated. "Never tell me the odds!" If Han Solo had listened to the droids, he never would have flown into that asteroid belt and saved all their hides. You never know till you try (again, not suggesting throwing skaven slaves at great numbers of Chosen).

Lets say my friend wants too charge my Ironbreakers with his Silver Helms. He feels like its a close match up, but works out the math in the middle of battle (which would annoy me, just using this as an example) and discovers that most likely (60%) my Ironbreakers would win by the 3rd round of combat...so he doesn't charge. What I'm saying is it makes the game less fun. Because deep down he wants to make that charge, and I want him to try too. But if he knew what the exact figures were, he would feel forced to go with the better odds, as would I. Thats why beyond thinking math hammer is just not that useful, I plain ole don't like it as well.

Everyone is more than permitted to disagree with me and like what I don't. I've made my point you can have the last word Dan, I don't like drawn out debates, after all its a game!

[Trains_Get_Robbed]

I have played against High Elves a lot, with a variety of armies, against a very good, experienced player.

In my opinion they are not over powered. In fact I think they are quite balanced.

However, they have in general become an army that is easy to play competitively, and that always bothers vets. It's strange to think of High Elves this way, because they used to require a lot of finesse and tactical savvy compared to other armies, in 6th and 7th edition.

Pretending the Book of Hoeth doesn't exist, as I prefer to do, the reason I say they are too easy to play with competitively is due to White Lions, Phoenix Guard, the Banner of Sorcerery, and eagles. White Lions have it all, and Phoenix guard are also good, and both are world class exactly as they come. Also, they are fast for infantry, and thus easier to maneuver.

If you have any experience/have been trounced my elves before, you know how to abuse eagles. They are a fixture of the army, but now that HE have really solid infantry for the first time, the fact that they can do what they do with eagles for how many points they do it, is kind of imbalanced. Maybe make them a bit more expensive; 60 points and I'd be happy.

As for the banner of sorcery, it gives you on average 2 exra power dice a turn. Extra power dice are one of the best things to have in any army this edition, so being able to get that as an upgrade to a unit you will take anyway is pretty good and pretty easy to fit in a list without much of a head ache.

I disagree whole heartedly as does almost every tournament in the past year (both Etc and non -here in the Mid-West most recently BitS G.T the highest ranked H.E was 42nd). H.E are not a competitive tournament army, they retain too many bad match ups, while not having enough of their tools available whether through comp or army book choice to combat their overcostedness.

Great Eagles are great re-directors, but as I have aforementioned having only two choices in the Rare slot (one being rather useless) is very detrimental. Having a choice between say an unbreakable chaff/monster unit that doesn't eat the Lord allotment is very needed. Great Eagles can't really kill Sallies, chase away Skinks, Bat Swarms, Spirit Hosts, Sabretusks, Harpies, Gutter Runners, Warmachine Crews that aren't Empire. . . Edit: all that currently saturate the meta game. Something that a "rumored Arcana-like Phoniex" would provide, or a monster could help with against large blocks of meek troops like Slaves. Dark Elves have this with Hydras.

Special choices are great and they all serve different purposes, but realistically they aren't very much different from each other. When your making a H.E list, you start with Magic -unless Dragon Lord- and play off your weakness/or build up your strengths until they"re "roided up" to bypass such weakness's as T3 +5 save or S3/4. In the end, P.G/W.L are opposites each other but with magic are identical in a sense. S9 +4 Ward Fear vs T7/Regen +4/W.S 10 Stubborn S6. Rather close in likeness, choices that have to "be chosen" as they're the only way to kill enemy interdiction -as we all know how well everything else in the book does .

Lastly, the saving grace that has kept the H.E's afloat atop the Bottom Tier are the Special Characters and Items. While Teclis is in the front carrying the "O.P" banner, the book's items really have kept H.E at least competent in areas of need, like the magic phase. Looking at their items, there isn't realistically anything "broken" in the H.E book but many of the items are very good buys. The Banner of Sorcery like you mentiones is great, as it can fit on a special infantry unit that you have to take anyways. The Annulian Crystal is a great item as it averages out dispelling pools by net gaining you +2, Vambraces of Defense: rerollbale A.S with a +4 ward or the Book of I.Fing Hoeth. All nice tasty items that have helped many H.E general alike win games. Though this being said; BoH isn't really all that great.

(Looking at it objectively and not from the "Teclis-hater-camp," the BoH is really only a SOLID choice when in tandem with Banner of Sorcery (mind you not broken). When a H.E player takes BoH, your essentially building a list around the item (if you know what your doing) unfortunately, as it dictates a the school of casting, and thus the type of list.

With the BoH a H.E General is "Fist-Casting" or taking 5-6 dice and chucking them at a few threatening spells trying to get them through. This normally doesn't work until the latter stages of games (turn 3/4 onwards) where the possibility of a Dispell Scroll(s or like-minded items) are gone and doing so can often end in disaster with H.Es whom need magic turned on from the get go (turn 1 threats). The Book of Hoeth solves this by getting doubles thus, I.Fing -making Fist-Casting as opposed to Trickle-Down a possibility. Fist-Casting however has inherent flaws as does the BoH.

When you Fist-Casting with the Book, each phase you will roughly get 2 spells off chucking 4 dice at one 5 at the other. In doing so, your opponent is forced to save their scroll until you fail a turn of casting, or get a low winds of magic roll, as you can't really Irresistible Fist-Cast anything with only a few dice, and getting off a single spell isn't always near enough -better pray that low Winds isn't during a crucial turn, or that you don't get doubles on that one crucial spell like Flesh to Stone as the rest of the Lore is useless. In addition to this, your Lord level caster that is carrying the Book isn't passively doing anything (generating dice, unit buffs etc. . .) while he carries the book, instead pleading like a small child to be hid in a safe bunker of archers somewhere in the back of your lines; trying best to stay away from single Fiends, flying Harpies and Peg Knights as early on he realized T3 with 3 wounds won't keep him alive long.

Thus, with only perhaps generating on average 2 spells a turn, for a H.E general to get the most out of their magic -and their lists- they have to take large blocks like Hordes of W.Ls/P.Gs to that exponentially benefit from having Flesh to Stone cast on them or Mindrazor, a single large high threat spell that only really effects one unit -not the whole board. Making the list building aspect drawling and one dimensional, for your opponents a game of engage fights only the opponents turn -so no magic can't be cast, can't Mindrazor three units if all have charge saturation- chaff feed units, and cat and mouse with the Level 4 T3 3W Archmage.

With list-construction too narrow, magic philosophy that's outdated, and over-investment in tools, I personally feel that the BoH while SOLID choice (even more so with the BoS) isn't anywhere near broken).

Hence, issues that have been brought up before as to why H.E's aren't competitive on a tourney level.

[cptcosmic]

However, they have in general become an army that is easy to play competitively

that couldnt be more wrong. HE are not easier to play then any other army. in fact their games are mostly won in the movement phase and magic phase. HE shooting phase is mostly support unless you build your army around that. if you manage to pull off multiple charges on a single unit thus you wipe it out then you win, if you dont you have to grind the enemy unit down and grinding does not work well for T3 5+AS units.

as already shown, the HE infantry always loses against any other core unit worth the same amount of points without any support because HE dont have the bodies to grind. you have to dominate the movement and magic phase to win, otherwise you dont.

[N1AK]

So my question is, is my playstyle really overpowered and my victories merely the inevitable offshoot of the HE army book as my game-mates claim, "there is no defence against High Elves!" or are they just not writing effective army lists given their armies?

Are High Elves regularly winning or on the podium at major tournaments? No.
Are High Elves doing well in the comp enviroment, are they very popular amongst etc nations? No

There's no way for people on a forum to know why you're doing well in your local enviroment, but it isn't because the HE book is inherently over-powered.

[N1AK]

that couldnt be more wrong. HE are not easier to play then any other army.

I agree. Some people get shocked by the damage HE elites can do, especially with buffs but ignore the fact that they are fragile and very expensive. HE can be a good list but it doesn't 'auto-pilot' like the current popular Ogre build for example.

[N1AK]

Duplicate post.

[theJ]

@Liber:
Chillax, dude. Nobody's claiming mathhammer is the be all, end all of warhammer. The OP was asking if High Elves were overpowered, Warseer answered that no, unless you take Teclis, they really aren't, and Lord Dan threw in some math to back it up.

If someone you meet really does base all of his/her decisions on mathhammer, yes, they're probably idiots. Mathhammer is a tool, and just like any other tool, you'd be a fool to try and use it for everything, but that doesn't mean it lacks any uses at all.
From what I've seen of Lord Dan, I'd say he understands this quite well. He(like most of the rest of us) knows full well that there are additional parameters that are not taken into account, and even if there weren't, pure blind chance would still mess matters up.
Nobody's claiming anything else.

The point stands - both math AND experience claims High Elves, without Teclis, are NOT overpowered, with opinions varying between balanced and underpowered. That math is not the be all, end all of Warhammer does not in any way change that conclusion.

[Lorcryst]

Just my couple of cents ...

Teclis is, and as far as I remember, always was grossly overpowered ... that thrice-darned thing can win games on it's own, and it was even worse in the days of HeroHammer, when he had a potion to boost either his strength or his toughness ... he's been slightly nerfed (T2, no more potion), but he's still a powerhouse of a character with a base cost somewhere near -150 points (seriously, he has THREE items that should cost 100 points each!) ... but he's only ONE Lord choice in an army book that is mostly good with huge weaknesses (elves are squishy).

So no, at least in my humble opinion, High Elves are not overpowered as long as you don't take The Mage To End All Mages And Kill The World, and it still takes some skills to negate the inherent weaknesses of the elves themselves (again, high cost, T3, 5+ AS).

[Lord Dan]

Lets say my friend wants too charge my Ironbreakers with his Silver Helms. He feels like its a close match up, but works out the math in the middle of battle (which would annoy me, just using this as an example) and discovers that most likely (60%) my Ironbreakers would win by the 3rd round of combat...so he doesn't charge. What I'm saying is it makes the game less fun. Because deep down he wants to make that charge, and I want him to try too. But if he knew what the exact figures were, he would feel forced to go with the better odds, as would I. Thats why beyond thinking math hammer is just not that useful, I plain ole don't like it as well.

Liber I read your whole post, however for the sake of time I feel inclined to only respond to this part here. I think we actually agree about the uses of Math-hammer, and I wanted to clarify a point.

Mathhammer is only used to help you make informed decisions. If you know that there is a 60% chance of losing the combat then that means you are technically going in with a disadvantage, because even if you roll well there's still about a 50/50 that you're losing the combat. You know that if you need to win that combat you need to make changes to swing things back in your favor, such as charging in other units, ensuring a hero is present, or supporting the unit with magic. These kinds of calculations are actually most useful in the deployment phase, however that's an entirely different conversation.

Again, Mathhammer is a tool to be utilized in conjunction with experience. Interestingly that experience is often math-based in nature, as knowledge about how many dice to throw at a spell, which unit to bring into the combat for support, when it is right to declare a charge, etc. are all quick mathematical calculations that we do subconsciously. So all the people who are intimidated by math on these forums are actually doing some pretty advanced math every time they make an informed decision about a charge.

Finally this game is all about having a good time, and sometimes a charge is right to make because it just feels right. Even people who frequently use head math throughout games of Warhammer make those 40%-chance-of-loss charges either because they don't have other resources to allocate, because the unit they're risking is fewer points than the unit they're charging, or because those resources are more needed elsewhere. And, yes, sometimes the sight of your crossbowmen charging into a unit of White Lions is too hilarious to pass on.

@Liber:
Chillax, dude. Nobody's claiming mathhammer is the be all, end all of warhammer. The OP was asking if High Elves were overpowered, Warseer answered that no, unless you take Teclis, they really aren't, and Lord Dan threw in some math to back it up.

If someone you meet really does base all of his/her decisions on mathhammer, yes, they're probably idiots. Mathhammer is a tool, and just like any other tool, you'd be a fool to try and use it for everything, but that doesn't mean it lacks any uses at all.
From what I've seen of Lord Dan, I'd say he understands this quite well. He(like most of the rest of us) knows full well that there are additional parameters that are not taken into account, and even if there weren't, pure blind chance would still mess matters up.
Nobody's claiming anything else.

The point stands - both math AND experience claims High Elves, without Teclis, are NOT overpowered, with opinions varying between balanced and underpowered. That math is not the be all, end all of Warhammer does not in any way change that conclusion.

Thanks, theJ. In one paragraph you managed to state my point more eloquently than I could in 3 lengthy posts.

[montanarugby]

You beat HE by capitalizing on their main weakness: T3, 5+ armor. White Lions die in droves when they don't kill everything they're fighting against in one round. As a result don't chuck your elite units at them- send your horde of chumps in. Heck, even goblins beat them in combat:

30 White Lions with full command: 480 points
100 goblins with spears and full command: 380 points

HE character kills the goblin leader , goblins roll fear and break tests and possibly flee

White Lions get 26 hits, 22 goblins die. 78 goblins remain.
Goblins kill 6 WL. 24 White Lions remain.

goblins roll fear and break tests and possibly flee

White Lions kill 18 goblins. 60 Goblins remain.
Goblins kill 6 WL. 18 White Lions remain.

goblins roll fear and break tests and possibly flee

White lions kill 12 goblins. 48 Goblins remain.
Goblins kill 6 WL. 12 White Lions remain.

goblins roll fear and break tests and probably flee by now

White lions kill 8 goblins. 40 Goblins remain.
Goblins kill 6 WL. 6 WL remain.

goblins roll fear and break tests and almost certainly flee by now

White lions kill 5 goblins. 35 goblins remain.
Goblins kill 5 white lions. 1 WL remains.

White lions kill 1 goblin. 34 goblins remain.
White Lions lose.

100 fewer points of goblins beat the WL by a substantial margin in just 3 turns. That's 1/5 the HE army dead.

In any case this is repeatable across any army with access to hordes of cheap troops that can maintain steadfast over the WL. Once your opponents figure this out there won't be any more issues. ...well, actually, you'll be the one having issues. [/QUOTE]

[montanarugby]

oops sorry messed up the quote...my lines are the added part on how the goblins, would take fear and break tests and would run away by the time they could gring out the white line unit.

[Lord Dan]

oops sorry messed up the quote...my lines are the added part on how the goblins, would take fear and break tests and would run away by the time they could gring out the white line unit.

Liber beat you to that point. We have a healthy exchange spanning the last two pages, however you need to understand that these numbers are meant to show the combat potential of the goblin player purely from a damage perspective. This is useful because the players can then deduce the other measures that need to be taken to swing the combat in their favor.

For example, the goblin play can see that, while he wins the war of attrition, he is going to lose the first 4 combats. As a result he should keep his general and BSB nearby to ensure he has a re-rollable Ld9 for his steadfast break checks. Additionally, the HE player can see that if he does not support his White Lions either through magic or by bringing in another unit he is, on average, losing that combat.

Finally the goblins already hit on 5's. Even if they failed their fear test they would still hit on 5's, so fear in this case is irrelevant.

I hope that clears things up.

[Lord Inquisitor]

Even with Teclis High Elves aren't that scary in a zero-comp environment. They do well, no doubt, but sooner or later they hit something they can't deal with and they die. Even more now that Sniper Scout maneaters are in the metagame. Blam blam blam!

Ard Boyz was the premier cheese of the zero-comp tournaments and every HE army there had Teclis of course but even then they didn't stack up that well against Daemons or Skaven, who dominated the top tables in the final. As much of a cheesy beardmonger as Teclis is, the remainder of the list is sufficiently underpowered overall that it balances out to the HE army being merely "strong" but not "overpowered". Other than the tower of babel tactic, which is very wonky.

The only problem with Teclis as I see it is that he's a lead weight on the rubber sheet of warhammer tactics - put him on the table and the game comes down to "can you kill Teclis before he and his magically-augmented buddies kill too much of your army?"

[Alcibiades]

Your Math Hammer is nothing! Experience -is- everything!

I've always wondered why they put those electronic boards on roulette wheels that tell you what the results of the last 30 spins are. You're that reason, aren't you? And the reason that Las Vegas is rolling in dough.