High Elves in 8th Ed.

I'm not sure what the new format of games are going to be.  Everyone played 2250 in 7th Ed. and I think that the new format will be either 2k or 3k.  I'm leaning towards 2k because 25% percentages are pretty easy to figure out at this point level.  From what I've read so far, there must be 25% min core and probably 25% max rares and specials.  That leaves 25% for heroes or lords.  The good thing is that this will make things very balanced throughout Warhammer in general.  No more deathstars, lord and hero spam or other ridiculous cheese lists, but what does this mean for High Elves?  This means the death of Teclis and Star Dragon lists outside the 3k realm.  One of the biggest turn offs that I hear from people who play other wargames and not WHFB is that it takes too long to "get in it".  The fun doesn't start until 2k+ points and that means a lot of models, assembly and painting.  I don't know how I feel about this percentage stuff just to play your favorite looking models; such as a Prince on Star Dragon.

Percentages is perfectly fine with me.  The Star Dragon and Teclis lists were starting to get stale and I was getting tired of playing them competitively anyway.  What kind of hero setups we'll see instead?  I can see more of Korhil and Caradryan (these two were always awesome anyway), a mounted BSB carrying a Radiant Gem of Hoeth (battle wizard), or a normal mounted Prince with either Star Lance or carrying the White Sword on foot.  There's plenty of choices to go around and the fact that the current rumor says that wizards pick their spells instead of randomizing is pretty bad ass.  Why?  Because High Elf mages know all the lores in the game (in the BRB + High Magic) so they're extremely flexible in the realm of magic.  The only thing that sucks about magic in general is that spell casters are supposedly generating magic dice on rolls of 2d6.  I absolutely hate RNG.  It just doesn't make sense fluff wise how a scrub mage with a lucky roll of boxcars would ever outdo Teclis on a bad day.  Even if you add the wizard level to the 2d6, it still doesn't make sense this should ever happen.


Back to percentages really quick.  First thing's first:  High Elves core suck.  I know it, the players know it and GW sure the F knows it.  There's a reason why the core of the High Elves are 2+ in the book when everyone else is 3+.  We have room for 6 specials and 4 rares but we have a min core of 2 for a damn good reason.  The reason is that you pay 11 points for a single Archer and 9 points for a Elven Spearmen.  You pick a unit with 20x Spears and it costs you 180 points before you do anything with it.  Every elf is a T3 model with a 5+ armor save (and Archers have none).  You can argue that Lothern Sea Guard can do both roles, but they cost 13 points EACH for the same T3 5+ elf.  New models or not.. I'm not happy with this change.  The new Spears might fight with another rank than they do now, but in a game with a limited amount of points, I get nervous thinking about it.

High Elves have always been an elite army.  We rely heavily on using our break neck Sword Masters, our stubborn White Lions and our durable Phoenix Guard to carry the day.  The same could be said about our fast and powerful Dragon Princes and Lion Chariots, and our shooting from our flexible RBTs is second to none.  At the end of the day, it's our rares and specials that win the game.  According to the latest rumors, 25% is not going to change for us.. but rather that we can 3+ of the same specials and 2+ of the same rares.  Let me tell you something.. 25% specials at 2k points is 500 points to play with.  For a 0-6 specialized elite army, that is not enough points to field anything substantial.  You know why this is so?  Because our special infantry costs 15 points a piece for a T3 model and 30 points per Dragon Prince.  Now I see a whole bunch of rumors floating around the internet that we ignore percentages or what not, but until I see it for my own eyes, I'm pretty bitter that an elite army is no longer very elite.

Lastly, I want to quickly touch upon the ASF vs. ASL rule from Great Weapons.  Supposedly, if we have ASF on our units, we cancel out the Great Weapon's ASL rule.  That means all our stuff will strike in I order.  In addition, units with higher I and ASF gets to re-roll hits in combat.  This is great for units like Sword Masters and White Lions.. but at 15 ppm, this gets expensive fast.  Especially if you try to take them in bigger units than we currently use.  Supposedly.. great weapons can also attack in 2 ranks so that's why we might see people try to maximize their ranks.  Units with I6 like Phoenix Guard and Dragon Princes will be really happy with their re-rolls to hit.. and so will our combat Nobles and Princes, but overall I need to see it in action.

I believe in a thing called "cost effectiveness".  I really do.  Every decision that I make when building my army lists is based on how much bang I'm getting for my buck.  Am I really getting my bang with my buck with all things considered above?  9 point spears?  15 point elite infantry?  What about my limited percentages at 2k points?  Does this mean that my future games require me to play 3k?  No further comment until I hold the actual rule book in my nervously sweaty elf hands.

Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition

In case no one knew, I'm a big Warhammer Fantasy buff.  I own over 5k points of both High Elves and Dwarves (probably more Elves now).  The sad part is:  Both armies are sitting in the closet and haven't been played for months now.  The reason?  Warhammer just takes too long to play.  Recently, I've been taking a break from 40K to play Warmachine and the time and speed it takes to setup, play and cleanup is miles ahead of GW's games.  And this is just 40K.  Fantasy takes much more longer to play because the rules are more complicated, there's more models at 2250 (the norm point level) and there's generally just more phases in the game.

Don't get me wrong.. I've played GW for about 10 years now.  I've sat through all the ridiculous price hikes, the book imbalances and the neglection of certain armies, but I think it's time to try a new game.  Now that I'm in the land of Cygnar and Retribution, I've been looking back at my beards and non-beards sitting in the closet.  As most of you know, I'm a die-hard competitive player.  I own enough Elves to build most competitive combinations out there (Star Dragons, Teclis..etc) and Thorek Ironbrow is my best friend.  But 7th Ed. Fantasy just really put me off.  I played a lot at first because the guys at my old club loved it.. and I had fun for some time.  But once VC, DE and DoC gave me problems due to balance issues and not because of generalship, I started to get put off.  It's like any game that I've ever played, be it RTS or FPS.. once something gets too imba, I shy away from the game.  There's no point playing when the metagame turns stale and the battles get predetermined through bad matchups rather than player skill.

Then comes rumors of Fantasy 8th Edition.  I see some good rumors, I see some bad rumors and I see a ton of general BS floating around the webs.  I'm talking about threads on Whineseer, Dakka and other sites worth noting.  When something as game changing as 8th Ed. comes out, I think immediately of my armies and how they are effected while analyzing the current metagame and how it is being effected.  I'm looking at the big 3 right now:  VC, DE and DoC.  How does 8th Ed. solve these power-play armies?  How does it effect my High Elves?  How does it BUFF my Dwarves?  All of these things I have to keep in mind before I decide that 8th Ed. will respark my interest in playing Fantasy.

In the next couple of posts, I will go over my thoughts in a more indepth manner, but for now, this is all I got.

BR: 35pt Rahn vs. eVlad

So I played another game yesterday and this time it was against my friend's eVlad list.  Here are the two lists:

Points: 35

Vladimir Tzepesci, the Dark Champion (*5pts)

* Berserker (6pts)

* Berserker (6pts)

* Drago (8pts)

Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)

Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)

Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)

Widowmaker Marksman (2pts)

Points: 35

Adeptis Rahn Shyeel (*6pts)

* Manticore (8pts)

* Phoenix (10pts)

Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)

* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard (2pts)

House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)

Arcanist (1pts)

House Shyeel Magister (2pts)

House Shyeel Magister (2pts)

Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)

The deployment was pretty standard.  I let him go first and he set up his army relatively close to eachother with Drago on this right side and everything on the left.  My deployment was basically a wall of infantry with my two 'jacks behind me.  The MHA advance deployed slightly further up from my infantry getting ready to head into terrain.



His first turn was what all Khador players do:  Cast upkeepable spells and then run everything he got.  He puts Hand of Fate on his Widowmakers, Assail on Drago and loops him around to join the rest of his army.  His Widowmakers also pushed up and tried setting up infront of a building.  My first turn saw my entire army moving up with run.  This meant that everything I had was within 14" of his army.  The Phoenix got into position to arc a Chain Blast over in attempts to kill some Widowmakers, but no serious damage was done and I managed to only kill one sniper.  Polarity Shield was cast on the Sentinels and the turn passes.

Next turn, Widowmakers with Hand of Fate kills two Sentinels.  His Zerkers run in front of his snipers after they shoot to offer them cover, cleverly sandwiching his snipers between a building and themselves (or so he thought!).  The rest of his army moves up slightly because he wants to get the combined charge next turn.  On my turn, things get slightly more interesting.  I put 2 focus on my Phoenix, upkeep Polarity and keep 5 for myself.  My Sents use Vengeance to move up slightly more in front of my army and then shifts to the right, away from the mass of his army on the left.  My mittens do the same and the Magisters shift towards the left.  The MHA slightly behinds the mittens.  The Manticore Covering Fires in front of the Demos/Bears.  Now comes some Elf trickery and Rahn casts a Force Hammer through the Phoenix and into the Zerker in front of all the Snipers.  He gets hit, slammed 5 inches into the building behind him and the snipers get their faces smashed in; caught between the giant warjack and the wall.  The Phoenix also fired his Halo Cannon and managed an awesome roll of 4 (matches 18 ARM) on the other Zerker.  With one of his Zerkers now knocked down and his snipers crushed beneath it, my opponent gets desperate.

On his next turn, he puts focus on Drago and charges him at my mittens.  He misses by about 2".  The way I moved my mittens last turn guarantee I would deny the charge since he couldn't charge my Sents on the frontal arc.  The Drago 'jack only had 10" threat afterall.  He spends focus on the KD'd Zerker and runs both of them in range of my Sentinels and the Phoenix.  Sure, he didn't charge but he was now in melee range of my guys next turn (or so he thought!).  The rest of his Demos push up dangerously close to my, separated by the small bit of terrain on my left flank, and the Great Bears looped around behind them.  They avoided the Covering Fire but it slowed down their advance significantly and that's what I needed.  I had to make a difference on my turn or things will go terribly wrong.  You never want a Khador army to be this close to you.  Ever.

Here it is.. my big turn.  I drop Polarity, put 3 focus on my Manticore and keep everything else on Rahn.  Rahn activates, pop feat and uses Telekinesis to move Drago almost next to two of his Demo Corps and turn his back to me.  I use Force Blast on my Phoenix and it pushes both Zerkers 4" away from him.  My Sentinels activate next and charges the two Zerkers in front of me.  I send 5 into each one.  They completely wreck one and leaves the other with 1 damage box left.  The Magister closer to him shoots into combat with 3D6 to hit and damage and kills him.  The Phoenix shoots at the Drago with his back turned and does nothing with his Halo Cannon (I rolled like a 3) and my Arcanist puts +2 damage on my Manticore.  The mittens activate and knocks down 2 of the 5 Demo Corps and pushes them back near the Great Bears, further denying them next turn's charge.  The Manticore now charges the back of Drago and spends a point for +3 more strength and goes to town on him.  Effectively MAT8 on the charge, he severely damages Drago in time for my other Magister to charge and combo-smite his dead corpse into two Demos, doing significant damage.

We call it here.  The Khador army was in shambles and the Elves of Ios emerge victorious.  My opponent had no idea what to expect his first time playing vs. Retribution and Rahn.  He knows now the trickery of the Elves and next game will definitely be different.

BR: 35pts Retribution vs. Protectorate

Before we begin, yes, I have a Retribution army.  I caved in, bought and assembled the army over the weekend.  My wife hates me a little.. but I promised her this is going to be my last big purchase in a long time!

Anyways, the game was 35pts, Retribution of Scryah vs. Protectorate.
It was Adeptis Rahn vs pFerora.

His list consisted for Ferora, max unit and full command of Errants, Templar 'jack, Vaquisher 'jack and the Avatar. Oh, and the standard Choir and a Vassal.

My list is as follows:

Points: 35
Adeptis Rahn Shyeel (*6pts)
* Manticore (8pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard (2pts)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
House Shyeel Magister (2pts)
House Shyeel Magister (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)

The game starts out with him going first, pathfindering and moving up his Errants and they're immune to spells.  I try to kill the dude that grants that bonus and I need 5s to hit on two dice with my Manticore. I miss twice. I shoot again, hit and then roll double 1s for damage when I need a 5 to kill. I knew instantly its going to be one of those games.

I cast Polarity Shield (no charging the unit at the front arc) on my Sents, run them up in front of my jacks and move closer up. Cast Force Field on Rahn and that was the turn. On his turn, he gambles and tries to kill the Mage Hunter Assassin with a charge from his Errants and her superior def stopped him. Only one of the Errants get to attack. He also tried to shoot one of his own guys with the Vanquisher in hopes of scattering into my dudes, but Rahn's Force Field says no and I threw the template back on his units. 3 Errants die. The Next turn, my Sentinels with POW12 Reach and Weapon Master shits on his unit and with combined fire from the rest of the Battle Mages (mittens), I killed the entire unit.

I sent two Sents charging at the Avatar, which activated Enliven and he decided to move into melee reach range of my Phoenix. I activated a Magister first, hitting and then combo smiting the Avatar away from the Phoenix. The other Magister Whip Lashes the Phoenix into a better charging arc by shooting at the Avatar and then the Phoenix charged in with his POW19 (thanks to the Arcanist) Thermal Blade and cuts the Avatar down a good amount. My Mage Hunter Assassin comes out of nowhere and with some decent rolling, puts the last few hitboxes of damage on the Avatar and he falls.

His next turn sees Ferora moving up and casting her Feat.. which basically sets everything on fire within her control range. Being an Infantry heavy army, this was quite painful. I asked earlier about the Templar having reach or not and I was told no.. but apparently when I was in the bathroom, it was a simple error that he indeed had range. This meant that the Templar had the counter charge on my Phoenix and managed to rip both its arms off. The shooting from the Vanquisher killed a good deal of Sentinels who were bunched together. Next turn, and this happened through the entire game, I forget about Sentinels having Vengeance (move 3" and free attack if a Sent was killed) and charged what I could at the Templar. I took my fire damage and some more infantry die (the MHA was left with 1 box) and the Arcanist repairs the arms on the Phoenix and the Phoenix swings for dear life. He manages to rip the mace arm off the Templar and damages his movement. I do some more elven tricks and get my Manticore into charging position from using Telekensis and Whip Lash with 3 Focus, charge a naked Feora and whiffed every attack even with boosted hit rolls. Failed assassination attempt #1.

I pop Rahn's feat on this turn and basically turn the Mittens into push/pull/KDers on a good amount of units and still fail epically to do any damage except for KDing the Vanquisher and pushing him out of Ferora's control range. Next turn, Feora casts some insane damage on herself and with full focus, kills the Manticore. I use more Elven BS, kill the Templar by combo-smiting his face in with a Magister, slamming it into some units to free up a charge lane, cast TK on the Phoenix and move it into move range of Ferora and let loose with 2 POW19 continuous fire attacks with boosted hit rolls (since she has def 15) that FAILS TO KILL HER even though she had no focus (leaves her with 2 boxes). Failed assassination attempt #2.

On her attempt, she risks the free strike from the Phoenix but he catches her with +2 to hit and a free damage die and she falls over. It was her attempt at ending the game there and killing Rahn, but I think she should of just raped the Phoenix and chance the next turn.. even though I'd probably just boost a Force Hammer at her face and end it with charging Sents + Magister.

But man.. what a game. By the end of the game we had 3 wrecked Warjacks nearly stacked on top of eachother: Avatar, Manticore and Templar, and a ton of Infantry dead on both sides. It was a bloodbath.. we had a hell of a lot of fun.

Two main rules questions came up and some minor errors on my part since it's my first game as RoS. Rules first!

1. I had 3 Sents in charge range of the Templar but my Officer and another Sent had their backs turned at Feora (in melee range) at one point. I declare a charge with my Sents at the Templar but I wasn't allowed to just turn around with my 2 Sents near Feora and swing at her. It was argued that I could only charge + attack the Templar because that's what I charged. I argued that charge is simply an order and that any model in the unit can charge/move/attack at any units they so please.. so I could have turned around and just hit Ferora with my 2 Sents if I wanted to. Anyways, no biggy.

2. This is probably an easy one.. but I managed to kill the Templar with a combo-smite from my Magister. Does the slam rules still come in effect even though the model dies from the attack? It opened up a charge lane but I was still able to move and swing at Feora in the end so it wasn't a huge deal.

Now for my RoS blunders:

1. Forgetting about Vengeance on Sents. This one is huge.. 3" of free move could of easily generated a ton more threat and charge range.. not to mention free attacks with my Sents near Feora. Damnit.

2. Not moving Battle Mages more aggressively and not taking advantage of the Magister's Combo-Smite as much.

3. Forgetting about Phoenix Shield every turn after the first turn the Phoenix took damage and forgetting about the Manticore's spend 1 FOC for +3 Str. Not that it would of helped much because I didn't HIT anything.. but being able to double-hand throw Feora into charging Sents and the Phoenix would of worked out a lot better. Oh, and I keep forgetting that the Thermal Blade from the Phoenix has continuous fire.

Great game, had a lot of fun and learned a lot!

My favorite warcasters

Recently I've been playing with 3 main casters:  eHaley, Siege and eCaine.  I won't cover eCaine because I already did an article about him so I'll just focus on Haley and Siege.  The point range that the guys around here play is relatively low.  A lot of them play at 15 and 25 because they prefer faster games, but I think once they get more familiar with the unit rules and behaviors, 35 points will come rather naturally.  I mean after all, everyone on Vassal and on the forums say that 35 is the norm.  Not that I'm super pro at it already, but aside from all the different matchups and special abilities, the game mechanics is pretty easy to understand and get a hang of.

So let's analyze eHaley really quick.  The reason why I love her is because she's very mage-like in the way she plays.  She has amazing abilities and a amazing feat, but she has paper thin armor and very low armor.  Basically that means if she gets touched or shot at by anything worthwhile, she's going to die.  Here's what my current 35pt eHaley looks like:

Points: 35
Major Victoria Haley (*5pts)
* Thorn (8pts)
* Defender (9pts)
* Stormclad (10pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)

Let's break down Haley's spell list and why she works really well with this army.  Temporal Acceleration gives me a free attack regardless of ROF ontop of 2" additional movement.  When cast on a Stormclad that's bound to Haley, I can get +2" movement because of Haley's special bond, +2" movement because of TA, +2" from casting Telekinesis on my SC, I can bring my SC's charge threat range up to a whopping 16" (thanks to 2" reach) on command.  Top that off with Stormblades giving him 1 free focus and Haley's ability to allocate 4 by herself if she wanted to due to the bonded rules, he can be used to kill anything in the game.  Just recently, I had him charge across the map and rape a Avatar and 4 Knights Exmplar because of the arc lightning.  Very cool.

Another use for TA (Temporal Acceleration) is for boosting my sole Defender's damage output.  For example, I can put 2 focus on my Defender at the start of the turn and cast TA on him later.  Now the Defender has 2 boosted POW15 shots at 16".  With TK (Telekinesis) to move enemy units out of the way, not even enemy warcasters are safe.  By giving the Defender 3 focus and casting Deadeye, I can have have 2 fully boosted shots going into the warcaster's face.  That would seriously wreck any caster whose not a focus camping Butcher.

The rest of the list is pretty standard.  I got my B13, Squire and Arlan in there because they're pretty much staples to all Cygnar lists, and the Stormblades to add focus to my Stormclad and give my army some more melee.  Thorn is a special arc node who works perfectly with Haley and can be used to hurl spells close to the enemy and remain relatively safe due to Reaction Drive (free 3" move after a spell is cast through Thorn).  With Arlan's Evasive action and RD, I can move out of combat before my own move is which is pretty damn good.  When given some Focus and assisted by some of Haley's spells, Thorn can easily walk up and disable an enemy warjack's cortex and walk away intact.  Very cool.

When you combine these factors with Haley's ability to shut down an opponent's turn with Temporal Shift (her feat), eHaley becomes one of the more dominant warcasters.  Oh, and she has Domination, which is a spell can take control of an opponents' warjack and have him make a full advance + free attack.  You can use your opponents' 'jacks to beat down his own caster or free up one of your jacks with a free strike when you turn his jack around forcefully leave combat.  The things you can do with Haley is truly amazing.

Next, on the list is Siege:

Points: 35
Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane (*5pts)
* Defender (9pts)
* Defender (9pts)
* Stormclad (10pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

Siege is all about damage and utility.  First, let's look at his weapons.  With Reinholdt at his side, he has 2 shots at POW14 from RNG14.  His Ground Pounder ability allows me to hit anything within 14" with a 4" template at POW12 without need of LoS.  When you factor in his feat Breach, he can threaten any warcaster within his control range all by himself.

The reason why you play Siege is to access his impressive spell list and feat.  Explosivo makes your Defender's POW15 shots AOE3 and Magical for 1 point.  Protectorate thinks Safe Passage will save them from Siege?  Not a chance.  Foxhole gives you 5" of upkeepable cover which can drastically boost the longevity of your units and Mage Sight allows you to see through Clouds, Forests and Stealth in a 5" AOE anywhere in your control zone.  In short, nothing is safe from Siege's army while he keeps his army relatively well protected.

The Stormclad is in there because I need a melee beatstick in my army and the rest of the stuff is self-explanatory.  Eiryss helps out in the Breach turn assassination run while providing disruption on key 'jacks otherwise.  The great thing about Siege is that he can use his Breach turn to do serious damage to the enemy army or completely wreck the enemy caster.  Breach effects his entire control zone and causes armor piercing (half armor) on the first damage dealt on the model.  A gunemage is shooting for raw damage die on Khadorian 'jacks.  When you have boosted Defenders and a Stormclad in your army ontop of Siege's 2x shots at POW14, things get really really real when this guy pops his feat.

Next week I'll try some games out with Kara Sloan.  She's not as top tier as Haley or Siege, but she brings a unique way of playing that's only really do-able by Cygnar:  Gunline.  I already got a bunch of games in with her through Vassal, but I'll let you know how many real life death threats and rage quits I get by the end of next week.

Oh! And I'm also going to play my first Blood Angels game in a 1750 brawl vs. the fish goat xenos Tau.  This is a game for the Vogen campaign that I'm currently in.. so hopefully I will bring blood!

Currently playing SF4

With the help from some friends at work and the Shoryuken forums, I'm currently rocking some SF4 Super with my man Dudley.  I finally got my lazy ass a TE stick so I can practice at home on my friend's XBOX.

I've never really played fighting games (SF4 is the first game in the SF series that I've touched), but I was really tired of getting my ass kicked at work.  Being coined the term "free" as in "free points" is not something I'm going to settle for.  As a competitive player, this simply cannot happen.  Right now I'm still working on my execution and bread and butter combos, but I think I'm starting to get a hang on the basics.  Considering SF4 is the first fighting game I've touched since MvC2, I think I'm doing alright.  My biggest problem in this game right now is that I'm not patient enough with Dudley.  As a character with no real ranged attacks and a little under the slower side of the spectrum, he's a pretty difficult character to get started with in Street Fighter.  Don't get me wrong, Dudley is an amazing character and has tons of damage potential, but he's one of those guys who can really shine or straight up suck.

A big shoutout to my friends at work for coaching me on how to play.  Thanks to them, I am learning how to maximize damage while preventing damage; which is pretty much what SF is on a fundamental level.  One thing that irks me a little is how sometimes button smashing randoms can beat me in the game.  Against a very good player, this probably wont happen because he'll be patient, but I find myself running head first into these scrubs.  I need to work on that.

Well.. I'm finally off hardcore OT so I should be able to post more.  Stayed tuned for tomorrows post on Warmachine and Cygnar.  I've gotten quite a few games in and I'm eager to share my experiences with you guys!