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AoS 2 - Aelves Discussion


Thiagoma

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Hello there!

My opinion on SwiftHawk models by now is: if you have then and wanna make an army, go for it but dont invest cash into the faction.

The reason i say that is because if Spire of Dawn models follow the Skaven way, most will be gone by the time a battletome happens (high warden, seaguard,  reavers and possibly Swordmasters) since they are no longer sold by GW.

That said, the models are cool and the army will look great.

The battalion is indeed controversial and  technically invalid in matched play, but if your local comminity is chill it wont be an issue.

Overall i am not gona lie,  getting wins with it will be an uphill battle, since Swifthawks lack punch, rend and mortal wounds.

If i may suggest, why not go with Order alligeance? Reavers are Order Battleline, and so are Highborn Spearmen ( can use the seaguard to represent it).  It will allow you to field Aelves things on the list to counter its weakness, such as a Punchy Dragonlord and resilent guys like the Phoenix Temple units.

If you insist on Swifthawks, i would advice on an Archmage on horse so it have speed to keep up with the rest of your army.

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Don't worry, I'm well aware they're currently somewhere around 1st place in 'most likely to disappear' category, but luckily, I've made it an extremely low budget project, and second thing, whenever something new comes out for Aelves at some point, it's extremely unlikely there won't be anything they could counts as with minimal remodelling. ; ) So yes, swifthawk rules are probably a temporary thing.  Sadly.

As for battalion: yeah, it's clearly costed for previous edition but it's allowed on warhammer world tournaments still,  so people trying to ban it are sort of acting on assumptions as far as I see. Shouldn't be a problem for now.

As for allegiance: I like, in theory at least, Tempest's Eye bonuses, as while the army clearly lacks hitting power extra move improves the chance that whatever power there is will be applied exactly where it's needed [and then hope for results, sadly. Even high warden, definitely most punchy thing in the list, isn't all that strong]. But I'm open for freeguild elements for extra bodies and cheap battleline...

As for now, yeah I don't expect it to win much but I'm willing to test how much can be done on speed alone.

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Well if you are informed and is ok with it, sure! Go ahead! I think it will be a great looking army on the table with all those eagles!

If you are going to mix free peoples, might wanna consider their griffon for even moar bird power! Stick an elf on top of it and get a great looking beatstick!

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On 4/19/2019 at 9:41 PM, Thiagoma said:

Hello there!

My opinion on SwiftHawk models by now is: if you have then and wanna make an army, go for it but dont invest cash into the faction.

The reason i say that is because if Spire of Dawn models follow the Skaven way, most will be gone by the time a battletome happens (high warden, seaguard,  reavers and possibly Swordmasters) since they are no longer sold by GW.

That said, the models are cool and the army will look great.

The battalion is indeed controversial and  technically invalid in matched play, but if your local comminity is chill it wont be an issue.

Overall i am not gona lie,  getting wins with it will be an uphill battle, since Swifthawks lack punch, rend and mortal wounds.

If i may suggest, why not go with Order alligeance? Reavers are Order Battleline, and so are Highborn Spearmen ( can use the seaguard to represent it).  It will allow you to field Aelves things on the list to counter its weakness, such as a Punchy Dragonlord and resilent guys like the Phoenix Temple units.

If you insist on Swifthawks, i would advice on an Archmage on horse so it have speed to keep up with the rest of your army.

I disagree, because A-they share a kit with the wanderers (meaning unless they get absorbed [in which case you are fine] or wanderers are squated [but they are aparently very good sellers so i doubt that] you are fine) AND the skycutter is both a unique and dynamic kit. at worst they will be absorbed into another aelf faction, they are arguably one of the most likely of the 'city aelves' the be expanded apon tho (other then wanderers)

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31 minutes ago, Turin Turambar said:

I disagree, because A-they share a kit with the wanderers (meaning unless they get absorbed [in which case you are fine] or wanderers are squated [but they are aparently very good sellers so i doubt that] you are fine) AND the skycutter is both a unique and dynamic kit. at worst they will be absorbed into another aelf faction, they are arguably one of the most likely of the 'city aelves' the be expanded apon tho (other then wanderers)

Not saying the whole line will be renoved, just the models i quoted because they are no longer sold by GW. Same happened to the skaven half os Spireof Dawn. 

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I think it could be solved in other way. If I'm not mistaken Poison Wind Mortar was 8th ed invention, so GW didn't have old metal model to sell again (they did it with warpfire thrower), so if they still have moulds for metal Lothern Sea Guard they can rerelease them (I know it's not a perfect solution, but it's still better than removing units from the game). Of course it probably means that High Warden would be lost, but hey, sometimes it happens.

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On 4/19/2019 at 4:30 PM, dekay said:

whenever something new comes out for Aelves at some point, it's extremely unlikely there won't be anything they could counts as with minimal remodelling.

I hope so, I have two Spire of Dawn sets in the drawer.  Opened one and painted the Reavers, but then it became apparent that this was not leading to an Aelf resurgence after all, so plans went back on hold and I concentrated on my Wanderers (and now Gloomspite).  One day their time will come.

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The way I see it:

Only Skaven thing that disappeared was a mortar, which was a new unit back then, never availible anywhere else and, honestly, with easy counts as uses after losing its rules. Skaven weapon teams still exist, just without this one option.

So, as far as Swifthawks go, I'd predict that:

Skycutter [and, by extension, skywarden] is here to stay. It's a new and interesting kit, fits into AoS aestethic perfectly andif they wanted to squat it it would probably happen long ago.

Shadow Warriors: Yeah, sharing kit with Wanderers, probably safe.

Chariot: No idea here, depends entirely on what happens to lion rangers.

Spireguard: standalone plastic spireguard sprue exists, it only lacks command group, so their either lose banner/musician options or need to be recut. Or, sadly, disappear. They might be too similar to dark elf infantry in function, but whjo knows. Swifthawks have their place in fluff so maybe they'll get a full plastic kit one day? No idea.

Reavers: No models, almost identical in play to dark riders [providing obvious counts as in case of their disappearance at the very least.]

High Warden: No model, but I'm not worried about this one. Imagine any neo-highelf army without a commander on large flying monster. They will get *something* of this sort.  Worst case? it counts as a dragon or whatever else new comes out now. Best case: Swifthawks serve Sigmar as well as Tyrion. Griffons and variations of thereof are very much sigmar's thing. If Swifthawks ever come out, either as their own faction or as a part of Light Aelves [their HQ is in Hysh, so it's likely] they might get new griffon things as a part of their army, perfectly fitting both Aelf and Sigmar's themes at the same time.

 

By the way, I asked AoS app people why Guardian battalion isn't there even though other out of print things are. They responded that they're not certain and supposedly logged this for the possible reinstating in future update. Might just be a thing to answer some random complainer, but who knows.

Edited by dekay
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On 4/21/2019 at 4:42 AM, dekay said:

The way I see it:

Only Skaven thing that disappeared was a mortar, which was a new unit back then, never availible anywhere else and, honestly, with easy counts as uses after losing its rules. Skaven weapon teams still exist, just without this one option.

So, as far as Swifthawks go, I'd predict that:

Skycutter [and, by extension, skywarden] is here to stay. It's a new and interesting kit, fits into AoS aestethic perfectly andif they wanted to squat it it would probably happen long ago.

Shadow Warriors: Yeah, sharing kit with Wanderers, probably safe.

Chariot: No idea here, depends entirely on what happens to lion rangers.

Spireguard: standalone plastic spireguard sprue exists, it only lacks command group, so their either lose banner/musician options or need to be recut. Or, sadly, disappear. They might be too similar to dark elf infantry in function, but whjo knows. Swifthawks have their place in fluff so maybe they'll get a full plastic kit one day? No idea.

Reavers: No models, almost identical in play to dark riders [providing obvious counts as in case of their disappearance at the very least.]

High Warden: No model, but I'm not worried about this one. Imagine any neo-highelf army without a commander on large flying monster. They will get *something* of this sort.  Worst case? it counts as a dragon or whatever else new comes out now. Best case: Swifthawks serve Sigmar as well as Tyrion. Griffons and variations of thereof are very much sigmar's thing. If Swifthawks ever come out, either as their own faction or as a part of Light Aelves [their HQ is in Hysh, so it's likely] they might get new griffon things as a part of their army, perfectly fitting both Aelf and Sigmar's themes at the same time.

 

By the way, I asked AoS app people why Guardian battalion isn't there even though other out of print things are. They responded that they're not certain and supposedly logged this for the possible reinstating in future update. Might just be a thing to answer some random complainer, but who knows.

honestly wouldn't mind if they re-did some of the high/dark aelf stuff to fitt a closer visuals. some kitts (the newer ones like skycutters) could stay the same while new dynamic 'generic' stuff could be added. so a free city aelf book would have a unit called aelf spearmen (or some such name) and they get upgraded in various ways depending on subfaction (swifthawks would give them bows for example) and the new kitts would include the upgrades for the generic stuff. it could have a generic foot lord and mounted lord, generic spearmen, swordsmen, archers and medium-light cavalry and then each subfaction would add unique units and lords aswell as upgrades to the generic stuff. that would be my ideal result for the legacy aelves.

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5 minutes ago, Mayple said:

What do we think will happen with the Tenebrael Shard/Mistweaver Saih models? 

considering that they rerelease the Doomseeker for Fyreslayers I expected them to come back when Malerion aelves get release

the one that are endanger of not getting release from silver tower are the ones on the hostile spures

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22 minutes ago, novakai said:

considering that they rerelease the Doomseeker for Fyreslayers I expected them to come back when Malerion aelves get release

the one that are endanger of not getting release from silver tower are the ones on the hostile spures

That's reassuring :) I've been a huge fan of the Tenebrael Shard model (and rules) since it was released, but since they released Idoneth Deepkin without incorporating the Mistweaver into them, and then removed the deathrunner with Skaven, I've been a bit worried. 

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1 hour ago, Turin Turambar said:

honestly wouldn't mind if they re-did some of the high/dark aelf stuff to fitt a closer visuals. some kitts (the newer ones like skycutters) could stay the same while new dynamic 'generic' stuff could be added. so a free city aelf book would have a unit called aelf spearmen (or some such name) and they get upgraded in various ways depending on subfaction (swifthawks would give them bows for example) and the new kitts would include the upgrades for the generic stuff. it could have a generic foot lord and mounted lord, generic spearmen, swordsmen, archers and medium-light cavalry and then each subfaction would add unique units and lords aswell as upgrades to the generic stuff. that would be my ideal result for the legacy aelves.

Considering Swordmasters may be removed from the range since the plastic ones are in Spire of Dawn sprues and the current line is really old, i would love a new version with the current quality of the Idoneth namartis. Big ass Swords with Dinamic poses would look sweet!

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46 minutes ago, Mayple said:

What do we think will happen with the Tenebrael Shard/Mistweaver Saih models? 

They always made me wonder about it. Mistweaver could have been added to Idoneth. The theme and the mask would fit, but GW didnt add then and for some reason i dont think they will be added to any faction and it is a shame.

Time will tell, but would be really cool if they could be used as at very least "count as" for some army.

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11 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

They always made me wonder about it. Mistweaver could have been added to Idoneth. The theme and the mask would fit, but GW didnt add then and for some reason i dont think they will be added to any faction and it is a shame.

Time will tell, but would be really cool if they could be used as at very least "count as" for some army.

Reading some of the new Inferno short stories it suggests that the Mistweaver might well be the forerunner of one of the shadow aelves from the new army that has yet to come out. 

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8 hours ago, Overread said:

Reading some of the new Inferno short stories it suggests that the Mistweaver might well be the forerunner of one of the shadow aelves from the new army that has yet to come out. 

That would be great, is a really cool model!

Its mask reminds me the one on the Leviadon drums, along with the theme i really belived it to be a "idoneth prototype".

Really looking foward for modern elven sculpts with such dinamic poses!

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Those are some nice phoenix guys! Phoenix kit is another model I can't really imagine GW abandoning - people were complaining it's too epic-high-warcraft like when it came out first and now it fits seamlessly into AoS aestethic...

Considering Mistweaver, I've been thinking what models we have that have been specifically mentioned as tied to Light and Shadow realms, and if i'm not forgetting anything:

Shadow has the Mistweaver and Tenebrael [both unlikely to go, i think] and also Assassin and Dark Riders - they're mentioned as a 'gift' from Malerion to Sigmar. And Dark Riders are staying for sure, sharing the kit with DoK unit.

Only current model tied to realm of light i can recall now is a Skycutter. Swifthawks themselves have a base there, and the Skycutter is their only unit consistently mentioned in fluff (Dawnspire is in Hysh too, but we know that fate of its units is uncertain). Skycutter had its own malign portents story even. The question is only if swifthawks are getting bundled with Tyrion's aelves or not. Had any high elf legacy units been specifically mentioned as Hysh/Tyrion related?

 

One more thing comes to mind about Mistweaver - I think people are getting too attached to literal interpretation of 'angelic' aelves. While Malerion's aelves are described as dark, majestic and terrible if i recall correctly, while both her and Tenebrael look... well, no more dark and shadowy than old dark elf line. Doubly so for dark riders, where only monstrous thing about them are the horses. No idea what that means when we interpret 'angelic' that way, but wings, halos and flaming swords is not wat I'd expect. Not for basic units at least.

 

As for the future of the spireguard and shared ruleset of all basic Aelf infantry - that could work, but it's not really something GW is doing with rules now. One set of warscrolls coming from multiple kits doesn't seem to fit their current design philosophy. So if I had to guess, shadow aelves will keep dark elf infantry units, while Light will get completely new kit. Probably something new, not a rehash of any old unit, and if spireguard return, it would also be a new kit.

To think of it, looking at current armour designs, it would be entirely possible to make a dual spireguard/swordmaster kit without compromising aestethics of any of them.

 

Edit for random thought:

If Malerion's battletome will be called Shadowblades, there is no need to repack Dark riders/ Warlocks.

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1 hour ago, Thiagoma said:

Lets go for few hard facts in here:

 

GW have yet to discard modern plastics.

There are a ton of Modern Elf plastics. Very very few are out of scale. A really small number are resin.

New/updated armies have adopted old models into their lines. See Gloomspite, Slaneesh, DoK and so on.

Current Elf line, except for Wanderers, have no "AoS name" and is still beeing sold on older boxes

 

Now the few Scraps of lore we got for Aelves so far:

- The Twins, Malerion and Morathi are trying to rescue Elvenkind

- The Twins were more sucessfull on their second Attempt.

- The second creation is "angelical"

- The current Elf line exists in the lore :Phoenix Temple  (Phoenicium), Swifthawks headquarters is in Hyish, the Eldritch Council is helping Idoneth to fix their soul issue.

- There are stronger and weaker souls among the rescued ones. Morathi DECIDED to create her Twisted ones (Khirenai/Melusai) in her form because she felt lonely and deformed and wanted her people to reflect it. She also decided to use the weak ones for males. The Witch Elves are elven girls that existed in the realms already.

 

Now for some speculation:

Lets say that the new Elvenkind matches the community Wildest dreams: Hyish Elves are Angels with light lasers attached to theyr heads riding light dragons who also have laser beens on their head and their mega prism loooking allies who, take a guess, also shoot infinite lasers.

What is stopping the current elf line from joining then?

 

-They are Elves

- Even with scrapped units such as the Spire of down ones, a couple new kits would make for a HUUUUUGE elven line of models.                    

-They live in their Gods Realm  (among other realms)                                                                                                             

-They represent ancient Elvens traditions that the Twins would apreciate (Since the Twins were pretty much the greastest representatives of Elvenkind by the end of times)

- No Lore reason to push the current Elves away from their Gods.

- Aesthetic:  Melusais are significant different elves but they "fit" into older models. So we know GW can pull those moves out.  Other than that, the current lines have a distinct and traditional elven look no piece look out of place.

 

My Conclusion:

Older Aelves are not repacked yet because the Uglu/Hyish elves still do not exist, so GW didnt repack the models just to repack again once their names/rules are  created (former High Elves have no Battleline for example. A unit would have to receive these stats or it would have to be one of the new models, so people would have to buy the new lines). Also people would buy then for beeing pretty cool , see Daughters of Khaine new models.

As a consequence,  elves (except for Wanderers) will have to wait for those factions to be released to see a repacking/regrouping

Same go for rules. Elven factions have no traits/tomes/artifacts.  What GW can do is to "separate" groups of elves on a unified BT until those lines do not come out.

The lines without current Battletomes are still very popular, the best example is the Dispossessed community. Those guys arent going anywhere. You can say the same for Wanderers, and on a smaller degree High/Dark elves, but you have to take in consideration the breakdown of those armies.

Heck even GW artists and employees have elven armies. Phoenix Temple and Eldritch Council ones already showed up on interviews and such as pet projects.

 

There is little to no indication that the current line is going away. Same goes to other traditional armies.

 

 

 

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The whole "angelical " thing will be a huge let down by a lot of the community. 

People are stuck with angels and not with the real meaning of the word , as in gracefull, beautifull, majestic...

Lets not forget that the twins are trying to rebuild their people. If Idoneth were not flawed, they would look pretty much like regular elves ( the akhelian are normal elves with cool hats if you think about it). Same goes for Morathi creations. They were deformed because she wanted then to ressemble her new form.

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That's.. entirely reasonable. I agree that lack of repack and allegiance abilities might be interpreted positively - they're waiting for their proper army to come out. There's no reason to think, even if literal angels ARE what we're having, that army won't also contain regular aelves that joined them. That's literally what happens with Daughters of Khaine - more than half of their units are just... aelves. From older kits, at that. They just got like three boxes of more monstrous units [melusai, khimerai, Morathi].

Also, we more or less know (again, shadowblades' fluff) that Malerion's forces will have normal looking aelves in them, so why not Tyrion's.

We have a lot of potentially reusable kits, giving both light and shadow like 3/4 new ones each makes for a bigger model lines than some of the supported armies.

Hell, here's a list of what I think is safe, just from current 'aelves' line, not counting Wanderers:

Skycutter/Skywarden [with possible return of foot warden. Spirewarden?]

Sorceress/Dreadlord on black dragon

Executioners/Black Guard

Shadow Warriors [sisters are folded into Wanderers now, they seem safe].

Phoenix Guard

White Lions [by fluff i wouldn't be surprised if they're folded into Wanderers maybe..?]

Scourgerunner/drakespawn chariot

Darkshards/Dreadspears, Bleakswords

Dark Riders

Drakespawn Knights

Hydra/Kharybdiss

 

Ones I'm uncertain about:

Dragonlord/Archmage/Drakeseer - well, the model is quite old. It still looks good though, and both Skaven and Beastmen retained some way older kits.

Dragonblades - also not all that new, and less dynamic than modern cavalry kits. Their fate is probably tied to the dragon.

Archmages - Showing their age now... And characters are usually easy to redo.

Dragon Nobles - Same, also, they don't fit the 'dragon' aestethic fully as they were designed as generic high elves.

Swordmasters - ancient. As good as gone.

Chariot/Lion chariot - Depending on both Lion Rangers and Swifthawks' fate. Also quite old, but holding itself up quite well.

Corsairs - pretty, but old. Base for a mini faction with newer rest of models.

Assassin, Fleetmaster, Loremaster, Sorceress - All have square bases built into their sprues. But so do Seraphon characters.

 

Those are, however, mostly newish and ood kits. Only instance those disappeared was Tomb Kings and it was one time under previous management. We also can't be certain their newer kits will return one day, as Nulahmia exists in fluff.

 

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I really hope Dragon Blades stay. They are literally my favorite unit ever.

What i think is going away is the 2 lion rangers units. They are realky tinny guys compared to other elves (that said, so are Glade Guards).

I really dont think Dragon/blades/archmage/nobles are going away, but i do hope they give different skills to the guys on foot and on horse.

Currently it makes no sense to use the on foot version. Give the archmages diferent spells and voila!

20181217_032048.jpg.eb0f0e63daaeb4c2dcce4e993e76c2b9.jpg

This is my Archmage on horse. I am really proud of it and think the model is really cool!

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It *is* a nice model, would be a bit of a shame to see a kit go, but if it does, in al likeness a new mage kit will replace it. Maybe not modular, though, they seem to be stepping away from those. Noble is in more danger than the mage - first of all, foot version doesn't synergise with Draconis at all. There are no units he can keep up with. Secondly, as mentioned, kit has a lot of non-dragon imagery in it. Like, huge Phoenix on the banner. 

I'd also like Dragonblades to stay, it's an extremely cool looking unit but I'm sure that if they intend to keep Draconis at all, they're safe.

But yeah, if both foot and mounted versions of noble and mage are kept, they will probably get different rules as now version without horse is pretty much useless (negligable advantage of smaller base and lower height nonwithstanding).

If lion chariot goes, so does swifthawk one - which, to think of it, doesn't hurt a faction much. They're weak now anyway and don't fit the theme all that well - why use regular chariot if you have flying ones. But generally, who knows - the storyline is advancing towards releasing of Slaanesh, which is a very Aelf-related matter. Maybe we'll get some news relatively soon.

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My local meta plays with 1250 points since AoS is still young on the community and lower points make the game more acessible.

Here is my Aelven list that have been mid tier sucessfull:

Heroes:

Anointed on Frostheart Phoenix ( general, master of defense and Ignax scale)

Archmage on Horse

Archmage on Dragon

 

Battlelines

Glade Guard x 10

Glade Guard x 10

Units 

Phoenix Guard x 20

 

Total 1240.

 

So far i have kept myself exactly in the middle of the table on our local tournament, and that is not bad considering the great majority of players over here have been playing with top tier armies such DoK, LoN, Idoneth, Nighthaunt,  Balistae spam ScE and so on.

 

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