Is the new elf book overpowered? If so, how so?

[Finnigan2004]

I have been waiting to post this for a while, so that people could get in a few games with the new high elf book. When the book was released, it was characterized as the end of game balance for warhammer. People described armies with a pair of dragons, magical supremacy, and sixty swordmasters that would annihilate all before them.

Now that the book has been out for a while, I am curious as to whether people have encountered any elven armies that are too powerful and unbalanced (and I am wondering what those builds include). I am also curious how many people have found that the new book seems nicely balanced.

[happy_doctor]

I voted for "I would have done it differently".

-I have no problem with ASF, it's characterful and makes HE infantry solid. As an opponent, I welcome the challenge and I must say i prefer it to the 4 Bolt Thrower-Heavy Magic-All Cavalry approach of the last edition. It makes for good, fun games.

-No Problem with the unit changes, either. Dragon princes may be a bit undercosted (by a point or three) as they have made Silver Helms pretty much redundant. The infantry units are what they should be, even Lothern Sea Guard is much more viable now.

-What I really dislike is the new Special Characters, not for their powers but for the fact that they don't take up an extra Hero slot or so. There is absolutely no "penalty" for taking Korhil instead of a Noble or Teclis instead of an Archmage. I find it an unsubtle way to promote special characters (boosting sales), whereas the older edition incarnations demanded a hefty price in the form of a Hero or Rare slot, thus making this a harder decision.

-Star Dragons are an issue for me, as well. They should have either been 30-50 points more expensive, or should have never existed. I know that fluff-wise the Elves have the greatest and most powerful dragons, but some things are simply no-do's in the Warhammer Game Mechanics.

Giving a ridden flying monster the ability to take on a fully ranked unit in the front, without a risk of losing the combat is something that until now was avoided, giving players a tactical challenge when using monstrous mounts. Six attacks at WS7, S7 pretty much ruin this. I would have kept the WS at 6, raising attacks and strength, OR I wouldn't have given extra wounds...Being able to commit the dragon anywhare with impunity is more or less 40K, not fantasy.

All in all, minor changes. The new book is in the right spirit if you ask me. Some people can't get over the fact that High Elves are no longer the pushovers of the Warhammer world.

Happy_doctor

[Gazak Blacktoof]

I also voted for "would have done it differently."

The book seems well balanced but I have my reservations.

I still don't like the mass aplication of ASF which is primarily a magically gifted ability in warhammer. I'm also not sure how well I'm going to be able to handle star dragons, I've not had to face one yet.

Aside from those two points the only other element of the book I don't like is the way the core/ special/ rare slots were altered. My brother still likes using lots of spearmen but he knows his army could be better using minimum core and filling up on the brilliant special choices.

A High Elf list isn't forced to make its core choices work like other armies are. Even with the increase in special and rare slots to allow more freedom I would have prefered the army to still need a minimum of 3 core choices.

[winkypinky]

Why didnt you include an option in your poll that was.

Nerfed.

???

I for one believe they have been nerfed a lot. (almost) no amount of special rules can make up for the lack of core cavalry for an elite army without superior shooting.

[rodmillard]

Also went for "I would have done it differently."

Personally, I think GW missed a trick in dropping the honours system. At my local club we experimented with an expanded honour system including "Provincial Lord" honours such as the following:

Lord Of Tyranoc (15 points): If this character is your general, Tyranoc Chariots are now core. The character may ride a chariot selected from the list as normal.

Priest Of Assuryan (20 points): The character causes fear. In addition, Phoenix Guard are now a special choice and you may have up to one additional unit of Phoenix Guard per character with this honour.

Those are the two I can remember accurately, but we had similar options to make all the elite units either core, or no longer 0-1. I still think it would have worked better than tweaking the army composition tables.

[theunwantedbeing]

No SoA for the following:
Archers
Spearmen
Bolt thrower crew

Dragon princes would get a touch more expensive so silver helms dont seem so pointless...as they are at the moment, 4pts more for +1 ws leadership and attacks...rediculous.

[Gimp]

Originally Posted by winkypinky

Why didnt you include an option in your poll that was.

Nerfed.

???

I for one believe they have been nerfed a lot. (almost) no amount of special rules can make up for the lack of core cavalry for an elite army without superior shooting.

I take it you were a 6th ed player that used an all monted high elf army.I have met to good players one with a really good all mounted army (save 2 unit of archers which are good anyway) and another with tones of shooting and magic that forms an Elven Gun Line.

I said it was not balanced but its not over powered. I dont play them myself but i like to play agianst them. Like any army it has its strong side and down sides.

[Finnigan2004]

Hey winkypinky, you could vote not balanced, but not overpowered and then explain if that is your position. I didn't include nerfed because I never really thought of it. I think that this was inevitable though because the studio wanted to have the army include infantry for thematic reasons too (cavalry is usually too good an option when compared to elite infantry). Also, it would probably lead to a flame fest, so... . I think that a few things got nerfed, not just the cavalry. You can't take a seer council anymore, which was one of the more powerful options.

[Frep]

I don't have a problem with the Highelves, but I would have replaced ASF with Always strikes in iniative order. It has the same effect against most core enemy troops, but isn't so over-powering against other elf armies and it doesn't make units with ASF in enemy armies pointless. They're not ridiculously over-powered it's just that the explanation for ASF makes no sence to me, why don't dark elves, wood elves or even dwarfs have ASF (Yes I said dwarfs, if the explanation is that High elves get ASF for their decades of experiance, why don't the long lived dwarfs get it?, I'm not actually advocating dwarf ASF, I'm just making a point).

[enyoss]

I too went for the 'I'd have done it differently option'. My main gripe is the shift of silverhelms to special and their hopeless comparison with dragon princes. Here's how I'd have done it though...

o - ASF is fine I think. Strikes in Initiative order would have essentially made the army overpriced against some opponents while keeping it as it currently is against others. For this reason I'd say ASF is superior for external balance reasons.

o - For internal balance reasons alone I'd up the points of the DPs by 2-3 points, as even if they're pricey they do have the bonus of being able to take a magic banner.

o - In turn I'd shift the silverhelms back to core. However, I would only do so if they had a restriction whereby you could only take as many silverhelm units as you had spearmen units... I'm in no hurry to go back to the all cavalry days.

o - Move Phoenix Guard to rare. I just prefer them that way!

o - And all the jiggery pokery above should allow the previous Core/Special/Rare requirements to be reinstated! I really have no idea why the Rare slots were tinkered with in particular .

All in all though it's nowhere near as bad as some of the naysayers would have had us believe. At least, the early poll results suggest so anyway! I certainly think that the current incarnation is an improvement and am relishing the fact that there are quite a few viable builds.

Cheers,

enyoss

[Shamfrit]

As has already been said, giving ASF only to Swordmasters, possibly White Lions and charging Spearmen would balance off the issues, and this is the opinion of the HE players in our group as well, some of whom feel bad playing because it is so outrageously overbalanced against certain armies, Undead and Orcs & Goblins being two of them.

[Aryakas]

I don't think its overpowered by any means but the blanket SOA doesn't seem very fluffy to me. Spearmen striking before a Slaanesh Greater Demon? Really?

[Wolfmother]

at first i thought they were going to be the most broken thing since brets!

but after plaing against them there quite a balanced army and work well!

[W0lf]

there certainly not as bad as i expected and whilst ASF is unbalanced i hate it. It stillemoves one of the key aspects of warhammer, getting the charge.

[ChrisAsmadi]

I find it rediculous that the High Elves got ASF, and Wood Elves didn't.

I'm guessing Dark Elves won't, either.

[W0lf]

Wood elves sure as hell dont need it.

If you dont get the charge with wood elves you have serious movement issues. Charge + High I means wood elves dont need he one trick pony that is speed of asuryan.

[catbarf]

ASF isn't a great idea. Against Dwarfs, it's useless. Against Ogres, you will screw them over completely. It's an example of a rule where the usefulness is completely dependent on what enemy you face, and thus isn't balanced.

[-Grimgorironhide-]

I don't think the ASF is over powered because even though you can't really get the charge most of the time it just allows you to think of different tactics to take them down instead of getting the charge all the time.

[Grand Warlord]

I dont think its too bad .. but i have limited experience with it.

[The Old Scholar]

Yeah, I feel the book is nicely balanced, but I have a reservation....
I was anticipating the book's release so that I might alter my army a bit, but...
Well--and this has nothing to do with the book--I didn't get any new core choice models to add to my army--they didn't release any and I've already a trillion of the older ones from the past few editions.
And though the points for some choices may have dropped a point or two, the point value for some of the more valuable unit choices have gone up--uh....
So, my lists look almost the exact same....
I lost the blind sword elf...crap...I got a dragon mage I'll never use...crap...but the book is great. Adam Troke innovated something new, took a big risk in doing it, and I think it came out nicely.
One point to make with all of this is that everything Games Workshop does is either a work in progress, or is so ephemeral due to overall rule updates that it isn't the same in a brief matter of time. In short, balanced today, broken tomorrow. Only time will tell.
Oh, and Temakador is "Adam Troke" scrambled...WTF, Adam?